Page 85 of Their Mate
Elias’s voice was quieter, but it hit harder, nonetheless. “If you lied about being mated, I can’t trust you to have our backs when the wolves come. And they will come, Sera. I’d bet my life they’re already on their way here for you.”
“That’s not true,” I said, leaning forward. “You think I’d risk my life crossing the Irish Sea to bring you this if I wasn’t still one of you? The Watch has been my whole life since I came of age. I came here to warn the Watch, to help stop Reilly before he?—”
Dane lifted a hand, palm outward, as if brushing my words aside. “You came here because you had nowhere else to go.”
“That’s not?—”
He pressed a button on the panel embedded in his desk. The click of it echoed far too loudly in the small room. A moment later, a tinny voice came through an overhead speaker:“Yes, Commander?”
“Bring a security team to my office,” Dane said into the intercom. “Now.”
My stomach went cold. “What are you doing?”
Elias’s jaw was tight, but he didn’t move to stop the commander. “Sera?—”
“No,” I said, standing so fast the chair scraped across the floor. “You don’t get to lock me up because you don’t like the truth. You need me. You need?—”
The door burst open and four-armed Watch soldiers barged in, rifles at the ready, faces expressionless under their helmets.
“Captain Moore,” Dane said, his voice carrying the kind of smooth authority that left no room for argument. “You’re being taken into protective custody.”
I laughed. “Protective custody? You meancontainment.”
“Call it whatever you like,” Dane said. “You’re compromised. Until we can confirm where your loyalties lie, you’re a liability.”
Two of the guards moved in. I twisted, caught one by the wrist, and shoved him back into the wall, but the second rammed the butt of his rifle into my side, knocking the air out of me. Hands grabbed my arms, wrenching them behind my back, cold steel biting at my wrists as the restraints locked.
“Elias!” I snapped, searching his face for some sign he’d stop this.
He hesitated, just long enough for me to see the conflict there, before looking away.
Dane’s voice was calm, almost bored, as he waved the guards toward the door. “Take her to Holding Three.”
We were halfway out the door when he added, almost as an afterthought, “And initiate Protocol W.”
The guards stiffened, their grips tightening on my arms. No one looked at me.
I didn’t know what Protocol W was. But the way the room seemed to hold its breath told me I wasn’t going to like finding out.
CHAPTER 28
Sera
They didn’t take me through the main corridors. No one on the mess decks or in the comms pit saw me dragged past. Instead, the guards marched me down a side passage, narrow and steep, the air growing cooler the farther we went. My boots slipped on the damp floor as the stone gave way to reinforced concrete. The hum of the base faded behind us until all I could hear was the clacking of their swinging rifles and the scuff of our steps against the rock beneath our feet.
We stopped at a heavy blast door with no markings. One guard keyed in a code, the other scanned his badge, and the thing groaned open with the sluggish weight of something that hadn’t moved in years.
Inside was a different world. Just bare stone walls and the smell of mildew and bleach. This wasn’t part of the Watch’s operational hub. This was off the books.
They stripped me down to skin with the cold detachment of people handling a weapon, not a person. Every pocket turnedinside out, every stitch checked for contraband. I kept my eyes forward, refusing to give them the satisfaction of even the tiniest bit of shame.
When they were done, they dragged me into another room where an upright steel X-frame waited in the center, bolted into the floor. They secured my wrists and ankles wide, the cuffs biting in just enough to make struggling a stupid option. The metal was cold against my spine.
The door clanged shut behind the guards, and a few moments later, Dane walked in. No escort of guards. No silly theatrics. Just him.
I didn’t waste breath on pretending. “So, this is how the Watch handles people who bring them intel.”
He stopped a few feet from me, his pale eyes as flat as the sea before a storm as they scanned my naked body. “This isn’t personal, Captain. It’s about wiping out my enemies before they wipe us out.”
