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Robb tried to calm his suddenly pounding heart.

It couldn’t be Tahnee. She didn’t even have his phone number, after all. It was probably Callan, concerned about the fact that he wasn’t picking up. For better or worse, he had a reputation for answering calls from his team in just about any situation.

That being said, Robb wasn’t sure much time had passed since he’d gotten knocked out, but he didn’t think it could’ve been that long. If he’d gone more than a couple of hours, if that, without a wyvern venom antidote, he’d be dead. So Callan, having ordered him off the premises to go sleep, probably wasn’t worried about him yet.

So who could it be?

“Oh, you want to answer that call?” the man asked, picking up the phone and looking at the screen, before shaking his head. “Young people these days, always wanting their devices.”

He held down the power button, and after a moment the buzzing cut out abruptly.

“That’s much better,” he said, even as Robb’s stomach sank. He could deal with the idea of being cut off from potential rescuers, but the thought of Tahnee calling him for help and not being able to answer was unbearable.

It wasn’t her, he told himself with more conviction than he felt. I’d know if it was her. She’s my mate.

Would he really know, though? He’d spent so much time repressing the bond over the years that he wasn’t even sure if it was working properly anymore. He hadn’t felt anything from her during the years they’d been apart, and he had to assume that she’d felt some sort of strong emotion in that time. If she was in trouble, would he even be able to sense it?

Stop it, he said firmly. Losing your head won’t help her. If she’s in danger, then you have to stay calm.

The dingo, now more or less fully awake and alert, nodded in grim agreement. As much as it had lost its usual iron control of its emotions since Tahnee had reappeared in their lives, it was always cool in a crisis. Robb wouldn’t have gotten nearly as far in his career if the dingo hadn’t been there to guide him, and to make sure that he kept calm and made rational decisions.

The first thing he needed to do was to work out just how much trouble he was in, and whether he had any means of escape.

He wasn’t in any sort of condition to bust out on his own. That being said, he could feel his strength and mental clarity returning, slowly but surely. If he waited until he’d recovered more fully before attempting to break out, his odds would definitely be better.

But how am I going to get out?

He could feel that the chair he’d been cuffed to was made of sturdy, heavy metal that he wouldn’t be able to break, and that the cuffs attaching him to the chair were the kind that were designed to keep him from shifting. If he was going to make a break for it, he was going to have to do so with both hands behind his back while dragging a metal chair behind him.

Not ideal.

There was one door, which looked to be locked electronically. No windows, apart from a small skylight that was too high for him to reach, even if he got on the table and jumped.

And even if he could reach it, it would probably be too tight a squeeze… not to mention the whole ‘unable to fly’ thing. He was pretty sure that Hargreaves wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep him on the ground floor, and he’d be useless to everyone if he jumped to his death.

His best bet, then, was to stall for time, find out what their plans were and how much they knew, and hope that in the morning Callan was able to convince the local Agency staff that his not showing up by 8:00 a.m. on the dot was actually a sign of something being seriously wrong. If he didn’t get rescued… well, he was going to have to find a way through that door.

We will not have a better opportunity to gather intelligence, the dingo said. We should take advantage of it while we are here.

Robb nodded in agreement. The old man clearly loved the sound of his own voice – if Robb could keep him talking, he might find out something useful.

And unlike Lucas the prehistoric crocodile shifter, this guy appeared to be someone of some actual status in Hargreaves, given that he was being given leeway to chatter away to a high-ranking prisoner without anyone else stopping him. He would almost certainly be able to provide better intel than Lucas, if Robb could just get him to let his guard down.

The old man, it seemed, was watching Robb intently as he leaned back against the table, perhaps a little disappointed that he hadn’t been able to provoke an obvious reaction out of him.

Well, thought Robb. Time to give him what he wants.

“What was that you injected me with?” he demanded, not having to put too much effort into sounding like someone who was in a bad way. Despite the fact that he was doing better than he had been even a couple of minutes ago, he still felt like shit warmed over, his whole body burning in time with each beat of his heart.

The old man waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t act like you don’t know wyvern venom when you see it. We’ve certainly used it on your men enough times.”

Robb kept his expression neutral, even as he wanted to lash out. Hector and Rhys had both only survived their brushes with wyvern venom due to luck and the ingenuity of their mates; they could’ve both been lost very easily.

Not to mention the fact that the only reason Hargreaves had wyvern venom in the first place was because they harvested it from captured wyvern shifters. It was a barbarous practice, and one that the Agency absolutely refused to participate in, even to the detriment of its own agents.

Wyvern shifters were extremely rare, and had a tendency to lie low in order to keep themselves safe. There was no way that the Agency could ethically procure its own wyvern venom, and that – combined with the fact that the Agency discouraged the use of deadly force wherever possible – kept them at a disadvantage.

Robb wasn’t about to complain, though, and he knew that his team felt the same way. They were willing to risk going into an unfair fight, if it meant that they weren’t harming innocent shifters in the process.