“Sienna and I hold perimeter,” Briar says. “Merric runs extraction with the Ravenclaw fighters once the breach team secures the first corridor.”
Conner has been quiet through the briefing, but now he speaks without prompting.
“I don’t think Willow should be on the breach team.”
The room goes quiet. He’s looking at me. I narrow my eyes.
“You said the facility has internal shielding,” he goes on. “Magical dampening, the kind the Syndicate uses to suppress captive wolves. If her abilities are disrupted inside—”
“I’m leading the breach,” I say. “My thread-sense is the only thing that can navigate the interior in real time. We’ve been over this.”
“I know. But if the dampening affects your—”
“I said I’m leading the breach.”
The look I give him ends the conversation. He holds it for a beat, and I feel the turmoil in him. This isn’t just the enforcer assessing risk; it’s a man wanting to protect a woman he has feelings for. The depth leaves me reeling for a second, but yet again, I push it away. I keep my gaze steady and cold. He nods once and says nothing more. Briar, watching from the corner, almost smiles. Almost.
Late afternoon. Brenna pulls me outside. We walk the motel parking lot, navigating cracked asphalt and weeds.
“Tell me what’s been happening,” she says.
“With Conner?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “With you. Something’s different.”
I stare down at my hands, then raise them. “I have… magic. Not just the wards or the threads. Real magic. And my other powers are stronger.”
“Show me.”
I show her. The involuntary wards. The heat shimmer. The thread-sense reaching in directions I don’t set.
“Also, I have power spikes when my wolf is agitated. It settles when—” I stop. Don’t finish the sentence. I don’t want her thinking this has anything to do with Conner. I don’t want to think it myself. But I can’t deny that the minute he arrived, I felt more balanced.
“This is good.” She nods.
“Good?” I stare at her. “How can it be good? I can’t control it.”
“I can show you.” She smiles and reaches out to squeeze my shoulder. “Trust me. I’ve dealt with things like this before.”
Of course she has. My cousin’s power is unthinkable, and my aunt has been helping him manage it.
“I trust you,” I say. Because what choice do I have?
Brenna watches me work through a series of exercises she designs on the spot. Focusing the energy. Shaping it. Directing the raw power into forms I can control: a shield that holds for ten seconds, then twenty, then a full minute. A ward that I throw deliberately instead of in my sleep. A pulse of contact aimed at the facility, reaching the captive wolves and reading their positions with a clarity that makes my head pound.
“Now try a directed push,” she says. “Not a ward; a strike. Concentrate the energy into your palm and release it at that dumpster.”
I frown at her. “I don’t have magic like that.”
She smiles. “Trust me. Just try it.”
I do. The power comes too fast, blows the dumpster lid off its hinges, and sends it clanging across the parking lot. I leap back in alarm, holding my hands in front of me as if they belong to someone else.
Brenna doesn’t flinch. “Again,” she says. “Smaller. You’re not trying to destroy things. You’re trying to move them.”
I try again. Smaller. The lid shifts six inches. Better.
“Good. Now the shield again, but move while you hold it. Walk toward me. Don’t let it drop.”