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“The crystals respond to emotion,” I say, keeping my voice calm even though his nearness still throws me off.

“Volt’s protective instincts gave them an extra boost.”

He shifts his wings. The injured one stretches out farther than it has in days—less pain now, at least.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time studying our defenses.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “To make them better. Old knowledge, new goal.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his tail stays close to my ankle—not touching, justthere. And somehow, that feels like something.

An alert pings from the monitors. The hunters are moving again, regrouping and shifting their formation after the EMP took out their gear.

“They’re falling back to standard pursuit mode,” I say, hearing the relief in my own voice. “Exactly what they’re trained to do when the Triquetra pattern fails.”

“Think they’ll try again?” Volt asks, stepping up beside us.

I trace their retreat path on the screen.

“Not right away. My dad’s protocols call for a reset after any electromagnetic disruption. They’ll pull back, check their systems, figure out what went wrong before trying something new.”

“How long do we have?” Dante asks. His tone is all business—focused on security, not whatever’s going on between us.

“Twenty-four hours at least,” I answer, watching the screen with eyes that have studied this kind of pattern my whole life.

“Maybe longer, depending on how bad the damage is.”

Now that the immediate threat has passed, the mood in the monitoring center shifts. The cryptids—who’ve been eyeing me with suspicion since the beginning—are starting to look at me differently. Still wary, but not as hostile.

I’ve spent my life learning how to hunt their kind.

Now I’m using that knowledge to help protect them.

Chapter Twenty

Blair

Later, as we check the eastern ridge defenses, Dante breaks the careful silence between us. “You knew exactly what they would do. Every step of the way.”

“I was raised on those tactical protocols.” My fingers trace the edge of a crystal formation that had amplified Volt’s defensive lightning. “I could diagram his approach patterns in my sleep.”

“Tell me about her,” he says unexpectedly. “Your mother.”

The question catches me off guard. I’ve shared fragments of my past, but never this—the origin point of everything that followed. His eyes hold genuine curiosity beneath lingering caution. There’s no judgment in his gaze.

Taking a deep breath, I settle on a rock outcropping. “She was brilliant. A field researcher who believed in approaching unknown species with wonder rather than fear.” A smile touches my lips at memories long buried. “My father was the methodical lab scientist; she was the one who dragged us into remote valleys and hidden caves, tracking creatures most people dismissed as legends.”

“She sounds like you,” Dante observes, settling beside me, close enough for comfort but maintaining a respectful distance.

“Actually, I think I’m becoming more like her,” I admit softly. “Before she died, their research was pure documentation. No hunting, no weapons. She believed cryptids had complex societies worth understanding, not just studying.”

“What happened to her?” His voice gentles, the question I’ve always dreaded somehow easier to face in this quiet moment.

“A research expedition went wrong. My father found her body.” My voice catches. “The official report called it an animal attack, but he recognized the marks.”

“A basilisk,” Dante supplies. He remembered from our previous conversation.

I nod. “When his colleagues dismissed his findings, called him grief-stricken and delusional… something broke in him. The devoted scientist became obsessed with proving cryptids existed—and then with developing weapons against them.”