Page 36 of Charged By the Razorbacks

Tamsin’s lips curved slowly.

“Careful,” she said. “That sounds like a challenge.”

Jarek grinned. “It is.”

Aleksy didn’t smile.

But his eyes did. “The fates have deemed us worthy of you, my love. We will not lose this challenge.”

Tamsin leaned back into the pillows, her body still warm, still humming, but something else settling in alongside it now.

Possibility.

And for the first time—she didn’t feel the need to run from it.

****

They did not meet in person. They never did.

The room existed, but only as a construct—an encrypted space layered across secured systems, accessible only through protocols that rewrote themselves after every session. There were no names here, no faces as they truly were. Only silhouettes. Distortions. Voices altered just enough to strip identity while preserving authority.

Control required distance. Distance required discipline. And discipline was the only reason Chimera still stood.

The feed stabilized one by one.

Five figures.

Then six.

Then—seven.

The last one did not speak immediately.

They rarely did.

A series of data streams populated the central display, not introduced, not explained. They didn’t need to be. Every person in the room had already reviewed the reports before this meeting had been called.

Three failed field tests.

One compromised site.

One recovered asset.

One missing subject.

And one—variable.

The screen shifted.

Tamsin. A still frame. A single movement capture with a thermal overlay.

Combat tracking.

Her image froze mid-strike, sai angled with precision that spoke not just of skill, but of instinct honed under pressure.

“She was not accounted for,” one of the voices said, low, measured.

“She is now,” another replied.