Page 2 of Fourth

Every projection shifted.

He’d misjudged, let familiarity dull his edge. He’d grown complacent because she was human.He’d expected soft and compliant. Predictable. Defenseless. But she wasn’t any of those things. That single scream had shattered the illusion, cracked the quiet veneer of the night wideopen.

And reminded him that underestimating any target, especially one chosen by his unit, was a mistake. Amistake he wouldn’t make twice.

Now it was no longer about a clean extraction. It was about speed. Containment. Escape. There was no margin. No time to assess. No room for delay.

Because of her scream,the hunt would begin.

He had to move.Now.

She fought with the ferocity of desperation, slamming her heel into his shin, trying to bite down through his glove. Every part of her flared with violent resistance. He adjusted his grip, asubtle shift of force and leverage—containing her, minimizing damage. She was compact, but explosive. Her heart thundered against his chest, her breath frantic andfast.

She twisted her mouth free of his hold just enough to scream again, louder thistime.

No time.

He slammed her up against the wall of the closest building, just long enough to inject the temporary stunner at the base of her neck. Asharp click. Asofthiss.

She collapsed.

Her body sagged in his arms, unconscious, dead weight, but still warm, her breath brushing faintly against his wrist. The pulse at her throat fluttered, rapid but strong.

Alive. For now.

He caught her easily, cradling her now instead of restraining her. No time to admire the fight. No time to consider the fire she carried in her blood.

He slipped into motion, fluid and quiet, his steps a blur through shadow.

Across the quad, where distant voices were already echoing in response to her scream. Through the access shadows, ducking low behind shrub cover as lights flickered on in upper dorm windows. Past the forgotten maintenance corridor, where he paused just long enough to scan for movement.

Two campus security personnel rounded the far edge of the commons. Not close enough to see him, but too close to risk transportation.

He adjusted her weight in his arms and bolted, feet whispering over pavement, shadows swallowing his form like water over stone.

Once clear of all potential risks, he transported to the ship—silent, sealed, unseen.

Extraction: complete.

But not clean.

She had screamed.

And someone would come looking.

But by the time security arrived, she would already be gone, cut off from everything she knew, carried into the stars by something she could not begin to understand.

And Riv’En, Alpha Unit assassin, would finally know why she had been chosen. The possibilities unsettled him more than he cared to admit. Not because she posed a threat, though she unexpectedly had, but because the look in her eyes, fierce and unyielding even through fear, mirrored something buried deep in his own past. Something he had been trained to erase.

It was not longing. Not intuition. Not yet. But it was the first edge of awareness, the whisper of a connection he could not afford, but might not be able to escape.

And if the order came to eliminateher?

He would obey. He always obeyed.

But for the first time in his long, programmed existence, the thought left a mark. Subtle, but deep, apressure he could not quite shake, as if her fate had already threaded itself into his. Not a scar. Not yet. But the warning of one tocome.

Chapter 1

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