Page 85 of His Claim
I groaned softly. “Don’t remind me about the cougar. I’m going to have nightmares forever.”
Kendra leaned in, studying my face in the firelight. “You really almost lost it, didn’t you? Because of the rage serum.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I remember flashes—blood, the sound of bones breaking. It almost made me kill Varek, too.” I swallowed hard, the memory still fresh in my mind. “He bit me, marked me, to bring me back. It was the mate bond that saved me.”
Lia’s eyes softened. “You love him, don’t you.”
I hesitated, staring into the flames until they blurred. “I do love him. He’s stuck by me through all of this. He’s a bit of a hard ass sometimes, but also kind, thoughtful. He takes care of me. We take care of each other.”
Kendra nudged me with her shoulder. “Then hold on to him. We all deserve something good after everything we’ve been through.”
The three of us fell quiet again. The fire popped softly, the smell of pine resin sweet in the air. I studied their faces—Kendra’s knowing grin, Lia’s calm eyes—and a wave of emotion swelled in my chest so powerful it hurt. We had grown into new versions of ourselves, carved by loss and luck and stubbornness, but we were still us. The same girls who’d stolen away to watch an ancient movie during the madness of our lives, who’d whispered plans they never thought would come true.
“We’re actually going to do it,” I said, almost to myself. “We’re going to end it.”
Lia nodded, her smile small but confident. “Tomorrow we start.”
Kendra tossed the stick into the coals. “Then let’s make sure to make the most of tonight.”
We sat there until the fire burned low, shoulders touching, watching the stars slip across the sky. For the first time in years, I wasn’t thinking about cages or serum or war. I was justthinking about them—my sisters in everything that mattered—and how much I wanted to see all of us on the other side of this alive.
When the fire finally sank into embers, Kendra yawned. “Come on, let’s go to bed before Soren catches us and puts us on watch duty.”
Lia laughed, rising to her feet. I stood last, brushing ash from my hands, and looked back once at the dark trees beyond the camp. Somewhere out there the city waited, the Council waited, and the end of everything we’d known waited.
I turned toward my friends and followed them into the night, the warmth of the dying fire at my back.
CHAPTER 21
Varek
The map lay between us on a flat slab of stone, crude lines and ink smudges catching the firelight. I watched the way Soren traced the city’s outline with one callused finger, how her jaw set hard when she reached the Council block.
“You want the northwestern gate first,” I said, voice low, keeping it simple. “It’s got the lightest rotation of guards. Two squads, maybe less during the afternoon lull. If we hit it fast and hard, we can flood people through before they know the gate’s been compromised.”
Rowan folded his arms and leaned in. “That’s the weak point you circled,” he said. “But weak doesn’t mean undefended. You’re relying on precision and timing.”
“Precision and timing,” I agreed. “And distraction. That’s where Silas and Rowan come in, pulling their attention away from our entry point. Keep the patrols busy.”
Silas’s eyes reflected the fire like molten gold. “My pack will run sweeps along the ridge lines. Small, noisy ambushes they’ll have to answer. We don’t want to annihilate them out there. We want to make them look over their shoulder every two minutes. Keep them from sending reinforcements to the gate.”
Soren’s mouth was a hard line. “Diversion buys time, but it doesn’t take the facility. We go in blind, or we go in smart. I’m for smart.”
“Then we go inside the city with objectives,” I said. “We hit the control rooms first. Take over the power grid, gate controls, comms. If we can blackout key systems shortly after the gate goes down, they can’t organize. They’ll be blind and deaf. Confusion is an effective weapon.”
Soren tapped the map with the tip of her finger. “We cut the power. Then you funnel the humans through the gate while we secure the controls on the city. Communications go down; the Council can’t call reserves or coordinate troops. That’s our window.”
“What about the breeding compounds? The labs?” Silas asked with a scowl.
“We destroy the labs completely,” I said flatly. “We free the women carefully and quickly. We neutralize any stockpiles. We don’t let the fertility drug or the rage serum move another inch.”
Rowan’s voice was as flat as mine when he asked what I already knew he wanted to know. “How do we stop both of those things?”
“We work together to stop the Watch from dosing every captive woman into a blind rage. Elsie’s people will give us the intel we need and then we burn the labs, seize or destroy every vial, andmake sure there’s nothing left.” I looked up, meeting every face in the circle. “We’ll need the cooperation of both the Resistances and the Watch to do it.”
Soren’s eyes squinted then softened at the edges. “That’s a fragile peace to ask for in the middle of an assault.”
“It’s not peace we’re bargaining for,” I replied. “It’s survival. If anyone doses the women—The Council or the Watch, on purpose or by mistake—humanity is doomed. One dosed female, a weakened nineteen-year-old girl mind you, took down seven full grown, trained wolves in minutes, then went on to kill several lab technicians. It took everything I had to fight her, and I still nearly died. It still took Mariah shifting and tearing her throat out to stop her. If anyone doses enough people with the rage serum, there’s no winner left to pick up the pieces.”
