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Magpie had bonded with them. Held them. Loved them.
And without them, Magpie would die.
“We have to give them back,” he said abruptly, jerking his hand away and taking a few wild steps back, not trusting himself to stay close lest he give in to temptation. “You shouldn’t have taken them. They belong to Magpie. He’s bonded to them, and without them, he’ll die.”
“We meant to liberate him and the eggs together,” Sandrine admitted. She zipped the exposed egg back into its bag. “But when we arrived, he wasn’t with them, and we couldn’t risk searching the dragon’s lair for him—there was too great a chance the field team would have been injured or killed. I admit it’s not ideal, and not all of us agreed that leaving Magpie there was the right decision, but I made the call based on two factors. The first being that it would send the dragons a strong and clear message that we will do what it takes to be heard. The second… I thought with the eggs here, maybe you would feel better. You told me if I brought you your clutch, it would help… and now here they are. With them, you can regain what you lost and take back leadership from me. With your guidance, we’ll be able to usher in a new age for all omegas—one where we can all be free.”
Sorin’s stomach churned.
It was wrong, but he wanted the future Sandrine imagined for him more than he could say.
With the rushing beat of his heart pounding in his ears, Sorin took a small step forward and dared to look down upon the bags containing the eggs. Would they be able to buffer the noise in his head? The guilt his brain clung onto. Those horrible, wailing screams.
He’d felt better with children to care for, after all.
Felt better with a mate sharing his bed, knowing they had little ones to love.
But…
“I can’t,” Sorin croaked, wiping his arm across his eyes to rid them of tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Sandrine, I can’t. It will kill Magpie. We have to let the dragon go, and we have to give him back his eggs.”
“But Raven—”
Sorin shook his head wildly. His resolve was too thin to be tested. He needed to stay firm. “The goal of the Vanguard has always been to save omegas from dragons. All omegas. It goes against everything we stand for to doom one omega in order to save another.”
Sandrine pursed her lips sourly as though she was going to argue, but Sorin didn’t give her a chance.
“If the situation were reversed,” he said, “and it was your son’s clutch that had been stolen—and his life on the line—would you feel the same? Or would you be on my side?”
The petulance vanished from Sandrine’s face, and the fight left her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“We are a force for good,” Sorin said as kindly as he could. He closed the distance between them and squeezed her arm. “Whatever we do, we must always think first and foremost of the ones we’re trying to save. The Vanguard isn’t going anywhere—as long as we all stick together, operations will continue whether I’m at the helm or not.”
“Raven…” Sandrine frowned, lowering her eyes to dodge his gaze. “Don’t talk like that. We will find a way to help you.”
“Maybe one day you will,” he said, not believing it for a second, “but for now, you need to help me in another way. I don’t trust myself around the eggs, but time is of the essence. Would you gather up the field team on my behalf and return the clutch to Magpie before it’s too late? I’ll stay here on base and oversee an emergency evacuation.”
Sandrine jerked her head up to meet his gaze, eyes wide with alarm. “An evacuation? Why?”
“We need to let the dragon go,” Sorin said simply, “and I don’t want anyone here when that happens. There’s too much that could go wrong.”
“Impossible. You can’t allow the dragon to go.”
Sandrine had always been opinionated, but she had never been this contrary. Something else was going on, something that lurched uncomfortably in Sorin’s stomach. “What do you mean?”
“We’ll lose our edge if we let him go,” Sandrine explained. “Once the dragons find out an underground resistance has risen up against them, they will send their agents after us, and we’ll be lucky to make it out alive. Right now, we have an advantage—the element of surprise—but if we send that dragon home and return his eggs, that will no longer be the case. The council will be aware someone out there has the resources necessary to hold an adult dragon and his eggs hostage, but that’s not the only thing they’ll know. If we let that dragon go, they’ll see us as weak and spineless, no more a danger to them than any of the omegas they keep under their thumbs. If we want to be seen as a force they should be afraid of, the Vanguard must make a statement, and it must happen now.”
As she spoke, a terrible image took shape in Sorin’s head.
In it, Reynard Drake slumped lifeless on the floor of his cell while eleven egg bonds snapped and shriveled into nothing. He did not have to imagine how the eggs would scream—his mind supplied him with that cruel noise of its own accord.
“We are not killing him,” he said in an iron voice. “The eggs are innocent, and they need him.”
Sandrine’s lips went thin again. “Then what do you propose we do?”
Sorin glanced at the door, imaging Reynard, unconscious, in the holding cell, and came to a conclusion that sent nausea through him in waves and worsened the noise in his head. “Assemble the field team and have them oversee the evacuation,” he said numbly, not looking at Sandrine, eyes ever on the door and the imagined scene beyond it. “I want everyone out of here before the top of the hour.”
“And what about the eggs?”
