Page 9

Malik drags the pen from Slate’s line toward Orion’s, and the pattern gets uglier the longer I look at it. Years and six removals for Slate. One for Orion, who arrived already shifting. Graves called him a specimen as casually as he used his name, and the Council had records ready before they ever offered him to me. Too much of it was in place before Orion reached Wolfscorge for any of this to be luck.

Kael looks over. “Why you?”

I know what he’s asking, and from the way Orion’s head turns, so does he. I could dodge it. Three years of keeping my history to myself has made that easy enough, but there’s no point pretending the shape on the board doesn’t include me. “Before Wolfscorge, I was part of another bonding trial. Different facility. Different Omega. Same bullshit about compatibility and stabilization.”

Malik’s pen stops. Kael doesn’t prompt me, which somehow makes the next part harder to get out. “It failed.”

Orion’s breathing is the loudest thing in the room for a moment. I keep my eyes on the papers because if I look at any of them, I’ll see the questions they’re polite enough not to ask. I don’t tell them about the kid staring through people while doctors argued over whether one more procedure might make him responsive, or how long he screamed before the screaming stopped altogether. I don’t tell them about the man who signed the final order while the rest of us stood there pretending signatures were cleaner than blood.

Kael reads enough from my face to leave it alone. Thane turns back toward the board and reaches around my chair for one of the pinned reports. His elbow hasn’t even cleared my shoulder before Orion is upright beside me, the growl that rolls through the room low enough to set off the fox pups somewhere in the next room.

Thane stops with his hand still half raised. “I’m not touching him.”

I put my palm against Orion’s chest and feel the growl vibrating under fur and muscle. “I know. Give us space, Thane.” Thane backs away without argument, but Orion keeps his eyes on him until I ask him to look at me. It takes another second before the tension starts leaving his shoulders, and even then he only settles because I haven’t moved away from Thane like there’s something I need protecting from.

Small paws patter down the hall before anyone can decide whether to make the moment worse. One of Slate’s fox pups waddles into the room, all white fur, oversized ears, and the kind of confidence only a child can have in a house full of dangerous adults. He takes one look at Orion and heads straight for him.

Beck stares. “Whose kid is that?”

“Preston’s,” Kael says, already looking toward the kitchen. Nobody lunges for the pup, mostly because Orion is tracking every movement in the room and nobody seems eager to find out what he thinks of a sudden rush toward him. That gives the tiny fox enough time to reach Orion’s front paw before anyone comes up with a better plan.

He starts climbing. Little claws disappear into brown fur while Orion lowers his head until his muzzle hovers a few inches above the pup. The difference in size is obscene. One wrong movement from Orion and the fox would barely count as resistance, but the kid keeps hauling himself upward until he sprawls across Orion’s wrist like he’s found the warmest piece of furniture in the house.

Orion looks at me once, which is apparently my cue to adjudicate whatever this is. “He’s allowed. Just be careful.”

A breath through Orion’s nose ruffles the pup from ears to tail. Instead of startling, the little fox digs deeper into the fur and settles. Orion’s ears come forward. His shoulders lower by an inch, maybe less, but after watching him track every hand and doorway since we came in, I notice.

Preston’s voice reaches us from the kitchen before he does. “If that bear eats one of my children, I’m skinning him.” He appears with another pup tucked against his side, takes in the scene, and apparently decides the threat still stands.

Kael rubs at his temple. “Please don’t threaten him while your child is sitting on him.”

“I’m establishing boundaries.” Preston sets a tray on the table, keeping a respectable amount of furniture between himself and Orion while he looks him over. “He is prettier than I expected, though.”

Orion stares at him. Preston stares back with the kind of confidence that probably comes from having survived Kael, Thane, Slate, and four shifting children under one roof. I leave them to whatever silent contest they’ve started and pull the next report closer.

Conversation crawls back to life around the pup still draped across Orion’s wrist. Somewhere between Malik explaining another set of dates and Beck swearing under his breath at a Council notation, the little fox falls asleep against Orion. That makes the board harder to look at, not easier.

The Collective spent years trying to manufacture bodies like his, breaking people apart to see what came through afterward, and now one of those bodies is holding a sleeping child carefully enough not to wake him.

By the time the food is gone, nobody is pretending the pattern could be coincidence. Veltmoor created the starting conditions. Wolfscorge gave the Collective somewhere controlled to watch what happened next.

Each line got them there faster: less time, fewer removals, less distance between damage and transformation. They aren’t trying to find out whether the process works anymore. They already know.

Now they’re trying to make it efficient.

Beck looks toward the Belbus column. “Then whatever they’re doing at my house isn’t a test run.”

Nobody argues with him. I stand, and Orion rises with me so automatically that the sleeping pup slides off his foreleg with an offended squeak. Preston catches him against his chest before he hits the floor and mutters something about irresponsible furniture while the pup immediately goes back to sleep.

“I’ll record everything the Council asks for,” I say. “Examinations, bloodwork, changes in the bond. If they try to take Orion somewhere without me, they don’t.”

Kael’s gaze settles on me. “You think you can stop them?”

I look at Orion, at the fur the pup left sticking up along one foreleg, then back at the board full of people reduced to columns. “No. I think I can make it expensive.”

Kael gives me one short nod. On the way out, Preston calls from the kitchen that he wants to see Orion when he’s human, because apparently self-preservation has never been a strong family trait. Orion’s shoulder catches mine the second we step onto the porch and knocks me hard enough sideways that I have to grab the rail.

I look over at him. He keeps walking with the exaggerated innocence of someone currently shaped like a bear. “I’m going to assume that was an answer.” A small huff drifts back to me, and I follow him down the steps trying not to laugh where he can hear it.