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“The radiation is⁠—”

“I’ll take my chances. I’m not leaving my mate. If something goes wrong, I need to be right here with him.”

Bray nodded. “Same.”

“No, Bray, you need to wait with the others,” Enar protested.

Bray rolled his eyes at him. “So it’s okay for you to stay but not for me? If trouble comes, I need to be able to defend both of you, since neither of you is a fighter. My job is to bring you back safely, and that’s what I intend to do.”

Mostyn held up his hands. It was their decision, and he wasn’t gonna waste time arguing.

Sivney and Isam left the room with him, retreating into the control room, and with one last kiss for Palani, Enar stepped back against the wall. Mostyn hit a button, and the machine hummed back to life, the table with Palani on it smoothly sliding inside the machine.

Mostyn’s heart sped up as he waited for the first images to appear, which took a few minutes. As soon as they did, his stomach sank and nausea filled him. He cursed. Oh Jesus, it was so much worse than he had thought.

Next to him, Sivney gasped. “That’s…that’s not good, is it?”

Mostyn swallowed. “No. It’s not good at all.”

Isam’s hand landed on Mostyn’s shoulder, and he blindly grabbed it, holding on to his mate as more images appeared, each adding to the devastating picture. Palani was going to die. Even if there hadn’t been a war, even if the hospital had been up and running and neurosurgeons had been able to do surgery, Palani still wouldn’t have stood a chance. The tumor was too big, too close to the brain stem. Inoperable. One hundred percent terminal. At best, he had weeks, but Mostyn doubted even that.

He relied on his medical training, on years of seeing images like this and hiding his emotions from patients to keep his shit together until the machine was done. The loud banging stopped, only a much softer whirring remaining.

Suddenly, Enar banged on the glass partition separating the control room from the MRI room. He pointed upstairs, then made a crisp salute. Soldiers in the hospital. Enar tapped his watch, and Mostyn held up two fingers. He needed two more minutes.

While Sivney secured the room and Isam was on high alert, Mostyn worked as fast as he could to print the scans, and by the time Palani was awake again—apparently, he had managed to fall asleep during the scan, which was both good and bad at the same time—he had everything they needed. He quickly rolled up the scans and tied them together with a string. Once he’d shifted, he’d be able to carry them like that.

When Enar finally met his eyes, Mostyn couldn’t keep his face from showing what he knew, and he saw the realization hit Enar like a blow to his face. Mostyn had never felt so powerless in his life.

But they had a more immediate problem. How would they get out of the hospital unseen with soldiers in the building? Isam motioned for Mostyn and Sivney to follow him and be absolutely quiet, and they met up with the other three in the hallway. Above them, footsteps were clearly audible now, as were voices talking and shouting.

“Is there another way out of here?” Bray whispered to Mostyn.

“There are two emergency exits, but an alarm will go off if they’re opened.”

“Where are they located?”

Mostyn pointed. “One is at the end of this hallway to the right; the other is on the other side of the MRI room in a hallway.”

The alpha nodded. “It’s our best shot. I’ll take the lead. Isam, you’re the rear. Enar, you focus on Palani, and I suggest he shifts to preserve his energy. Mostyn and Sivney, keep your eyes and ears peeled. Shift if necessary.”

Mostyn’s respect for Bray rose at those calm orders. Palani shifted, and everyone but Sivney groaned softly from the impact. It felt like Mostyn had been hit with a hammer as his energy was zapped right out of him. But that was a price he was more than willing to pay to get Palani out of there.

“Fuck!” Bray swore as they turned the corner, pointing at a security camera with a blinking red light. “We’ll have company soon. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He set off into a run, everyone following him. Shouts came from upstairs, followed by a door being slammed open and rapid footsteps on the stairs.

“Shift!” Bray snapped.

Mostyn didn’t even have to think. His wolf burst forth in an instant, tearing the clothes he’d been wearing to shreds. He grabbed the string of the rolled-up scans in his mouth and ran with the others. Bray jumped up against the metal bar to open the emergency exit, then another one, and finally, they were outside.

To his surprise, Mostyn could see perfectly in the dark, his eyes immediately adjusting. But he froze when he spotted a group of soldiers who immediately raised their guns at them. Oh fuck.

Bray and Isam growled loudly in warning, followed by a loud gunshot. The soldiers had opened fired. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

But he didn’t even have time to be scared. He dropped the scans and attacked, his teeth sinking into a soldier’s neck. As the man fell to the ground, Isam flew past him to go for another soldier’s throat, his muzzle all bloody. As soon as the guy stopped moving, Mostyn dropped the lifeless body to the ground.

Fuck, Sivney was in trouble, a tall soldier viciously kicking him aside. Sivney yelped in pain, a high-pitched sound that tore through Mostyn. But before he could jump into help, Sivney recovered and went straight for the guy’s ankle, biting him just above his boot. The guy screamed out in pain and tried to beat Sivney off him, but the wolf wouldn’t let go. Satisfied he was good, Mostyn picked his next target and attacked.