Page 32 of His Claim

The words seemed to cut through the fog of rage. His breath came hard, but his gaze steadied on mine.

“I won’t leave you here,” he growled.

“If you fight now, I’ll lose you. And I need you, Varek.” My voice quivered as the words left my mouth. “Please. Bide your time. Get me out later.”

The silence in the room stretched taut, every soldier waiting for his decision.

Finally, with a sound that was half-snarl, half-sigh, Varek dragged his claws back into his hands. He straightened to his full height and faced Maelor.

“You lay a finger on her, hurt her in any way,” he said, his voice a low deadly promise, “and I’ll kill every last one of you.”

Maelor inclined his head, the smallest gesture of respect, or maybe even a challenge. “Understood.”

CHAPTER 8

Varek

Colonel Maelor didn’t touch me as he escorted me out. He didn’t have to. He walked half a step ahead, hands behind his back, the quiet weight of nothing more than his rank doing the herding for him while two soldiers trailed us like bookends. We moved through the med wing doors into the main artery of the base. The hum of the vents swallowed our footsteps, but not the whispers of soldiers as we walked by.

“I heard one of those feral human girls killed seven wolves.”

“Shot her with three tranq darts and still took five of us to take her down.”

“A human girl did that? Bullshit.”

“Tell that to Reimann’s arm. Rumor has it she broke it in three places.”

Maelor kept his eyes ahead. “You’ll see her again,” he said to me, cutting through the murmurs, his tone as casual as a blade sliding back into a sheath.

“I know,” I said, and didn’t break stride.

He glanced back at me, testing. “You didn’t turn the med bay into a slaughterhouse. I appreciate that.”

“You prefer control.”

He didn’t deny it. “Control wins wars.”

“No,” I retorted. “Smart wolves win wars.”

A sort of smile touched his mouth and disappeared.

We broke into the central concourse, the old missile control vault that had once been the heart of a Cold War silo. Floodlights bore down from overhead. Patrols moved in tight lines. Maps covered the far wall near the tactical board. Noise rolled through the space and then pulled back, like a wave sucked off the shore.

That’s when my squad saw me pass by.

Joren peeled off a pillar and fell into step without asking permission, that scar down his cheek catching the light. “Sir.”

“Report,” I said.

“Rumors are breeding faster than rabbits,” he said under his breath. “Half the barracks says you throttled five of Colonel Maelor’s men with your bare hands.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” the colonel said mildly.

Joren didn’t even blink at him. “Other half says the Council finally brewed up something that they can’t contain.”

We stopped near the edge of the concourse. Rafe and Gareth drifted toward us like iron filings to a magnet. Brenna slid along the far edge of our group like a shadow, knife already palmed with no one seeing it happen. Maelor had the courtesy, or maybe it was instinct, to take two steps back and pretend he wasn’t listening. Which simply meant he was listening perfectly.

Joren rolled his shoulders. “Sir, you should know about the other rumors moving throughout the base.” He tipped his head toward a cluster of wolves huddled together. “They’re saying the feral girls are… karmic vengeance.”