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Sorin wanted to be strong enough to say it was the latter, but when he thought of Bertram lifeless and pale, neck torn jaggedly open by the claws of an agent tasked with ending his life upon order of the council, he didn’t feel strong at all.
“I’ll go to Russia myself,” he said. “We’ve already scoped out Magpie’s cloister. I’ll break in, free him, and bring him back with me. How soon can we book the flight? I’ll leave tonight if there are any seats available.”
“Absolutely not.” Sandrine crossed her arms. “The cloister was too heavily guarded for us to get in the last time we went, and security has only increased since then. Prominent Diamond dragons have been seen going in and out, especially lately. Even if you got in, you wouldn’t make it out alive.”
“You underestimate me.”
Sandrine gave him a withering look. “Do I?”
Sorin gave her a stubborn look, which she gave right back.
“You have been pushed to your breaking point,” she reminded him. “Your health is worse now than it has ever been, and will only get worse if you keep pushing yourself like this. You are our leader, Sorin. Without you, the Vanguard crumples, and then no omega will be safe. If you must insist on a rescue mission, send another one of our operatives to Russia. You are not in a place where you are capable of field work.”
“I’m fine,” he lied, but Sandrine saw straight through his bullshit.
“Is it fine to collapse in the mess hall?” she asked. “Or live out of your bedroom, barely able to leave your bed? All of us know whatever is going on with you is getting worse. On your good days, you’re cunning and capable, but on your bad days you make mistakes, and when it comes to infiltrating a Diamond cloister, a single mistake could mean death. We believe in you. We believe in the Vanguard and freedom for all omegas, but we will not be silent when we see you sentencing yourself to death. Not me, and not any of the others. You will send one of our operatives in your place, or you will send no one at all.”
Sorin’s head was pounding. He closed his eyes, threading his fingers through his hair, and tugged hard to get it to stop, but it persisted.
“I am in charge here,” he said through gritted teeth. “If we can’t safely send a team, then I’ll go in myself. I won’t risk anyone’s life. I—”
He was cut off by a loud beep.
It was Sandrine’s phone. She’d just received a message.
“Hold that thought,” she said, taking her phone from her pocket. “That’s the tone I have assigned to Kevin from the intelligence team. It could be good news. We can continue arguing after I read this message.”
Sorin glared at her again, but Sandrine was paying him no attention. Her nose was buried in her phone, and as she read, her expression became troubled.
“What is it?” Sorin asked. “Have they gotten through to Magpie?”
Sandrine didn’t reply immediately—it seemed there was quite a bit she had to read.
By the time she finished, she was frowning.
“Sandrine?”
She glanced at him and seemed to weigh her options, then shook her head and sat on the edge of the bed, inviting him to join her with a wave of her hand. Sorin didn’t feel much like moving—his head was throbbing badly enough while he was just sitting still—but he knew Sandrine would not ask him over if it wasn’t important, so despite the discomfort of having to move, he went to her.
The message from the intelligence team was actively open on her phone.
“It turns out we have no reason to keep arguing,” she said, but her voice was guarded; it wasn’t the kind of tone people used when they were about to share good news. “A member of the intelligence team was able to access one of Magpie’s devices just now and uncovered this.”
She opened an attachment embedded in the conversation, revealing a document branded with the council’s sigil—a document Sorin had never seen before.
“It’s a list of the omegas involved in the mating experiment, and the dragons they have been matched with,” Sandrine explained. “According to the team, based on evidence they found within the device, Magpie manipulated the list from the council’s central database, removing the original Diamond candidate and inserting himself in his place.”
A fresh spike of pain drove itself into Sorin’s brain. “What?”
“Before the end of the week, he will be removed from his cloister and brought to America as part of the mating experiment, where he will be bred by Reynard Drake.”
“Then I’ll go to Russia tonight,” Sorin said urgently. “We have to recover him before they take him to America. Do we still have a schematic of the cloister? I’ll study it on the plane, break in the night I land, and bring him back here.”
“You will do no such thing.” Sandrine put her phone down. “It’s over, Raven. We couldn’t risk freeing him before, and we certainly can’t risk it now. The uptick in dragon activity at his cloister is not coincidental—they are there for him, guarding him, monitoring him, and even if you were to free him and make it out with your life, they would hunt you down to recover him. It would put the entire Vanguard in harm’s way, and we can’t risk exposure now. When we do reveal ourselves, it needs to be when we are in position to make a powerful statement… and braced for the war it will bring. We aren’t ready to take on the council right now.”
Sorin heard her, but only peripherally, as though she was speaking to him through the wall one room over, her voice muffled and far away. His head was too full of other things to focus on her voice—the screaming was getting louder now, agitated by the thoughts desperately rushing through his head.
What was he going to do?
