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Caitlynn was watching her. She looked the way she’d looked in the corridor after the ceremony, weeks ago, when she’d asked Sloane not to hurt Chris. Careful. Open. Reading what sat beneath the surface without demanding it rise.

“I’ll pull the relay this afternoon,” Caitlynn said. “If you’re willing to be there when I do, I could use someone who knows what a failing core looks like before it goes.”

“I can do that.”

“Three o’clock. I’ll have Olivia run interference with Elianna.”

Sloane nodded. Caitlynn gathered the pram handle, adjusted the blanket over Elianna’s sleeping form. She paused before she turned to leave.

“Sloane.”

“Yes.”

“The data you mapped. The correlations.” Caitlynn looked at the pages spread across the bench, the pencil marks, the red smear from the reopened cut. “This is good work.”

The compliment arrived without decoration. Caitlynn delivered it and left, pushing the pram back through the garden gate, her auburn hair catching the early sun. She didn’t wait for a response. She didn’t make it into more than it was.

Sloane sat on the bench with her notes in her lap. She pressed her elbow tighter against the gauze at her ribs. The cut throbbed with her pulse, a steady rhythm beneath the tape.

She gathered the pages. Stacked them, squared the edges, tucked them into the folder she’d borrowed from Viktor’s desk. She carried the folder back to the quarters, set it on the kitchen table, poured coffee from the pot Chris had left on the warmer.

It was terrible. She drank it standing at the counter, her hip against the edge, her eyes on the window where the morning light was spreading across the courtyard.

Three o’clock. She’d be at the anchor with Caitlynn, pulling a failing iron core out of a ward relay, learning the magical architecture that protected a compound full of wolves who were only beginning to remember she existed.

She finished the coffee. Rinsed the mug. Put it upside down on the rack beside the one Chris had used before dawn.

Two mugs. Side by side. She looked at them for longer than she meant to.

Then she went to find gauze that would actually hold. She had work to do.

Chapter 23 - Chris

The east perimeter alarm hit three seconds before the west one.

Chris was in the patrol office reviewing the new rotation schedule when both alarms punched through the pre-dawn quiet, staggered just enough that the compound couldn’t tell which direction to face. He was on his feet before the second alarm finished its first cycle, the chair rolling back into the wall behind him.

Viktor came through the door.

“Two breaches,” Viktor said. “East gate and the western tree line. Simultaneous.”

“How many?”

“Six at the east. Unknown at the west.”

Chris grabbed his jacket from the hook. “That’s Marcus’s playbook.”

Viktor’s eyes met his. The recognition was immediate, cold, and shared. Split the defense. Force a decision about where to commit. Watch which position weakens.

“Kahn’s already moving east with the primary rotation,” Viktor said. “He wants you on the western breach.”

“Who’s at the west now?”

“Sloane. She was running the fence line when it tripped.”

Chris was already through the door.

The compound had snapped awake. Patrol wolves poured from the barracks in various states of readiness, some shifting mid-stride, others pulling on boots as they ran. The alarm lights bathed the paths in amber pulses. Chris cut through the training yard at a full sprint, vaulting the low wall that separated the central compound from the western access road.