I pull in a deep breath, then stare into his ruined face.
He’s looking at me with his one open eye.
Brown. Clear. Not dazed, not broken, not the glazed stare of a man who’s been in a chair for two days while people worked on him. Alert. Focused.
“Briar.” The word comes out cracked. “What—?”
“Shut up.” I cross the room. My hands find the wrist restraints. The buckle is industrial; heavy, stiff, my fingers fumbling with it because my hands are shaking now, and I need them to stop shaking. “Conner. The other wrist.”
Conner is there. He takes one look at his brother and something moves across his face that I’ve never seen from him — the enforcer’s composure weakening, just for a second.
“Garrett.” Conner’s voice. Rough.
“Hey, little brother.” Garrett’s mouth twitches. The split lip opens again. “Took you long enough.”
“Shut up,” Conner says. The same thing I said. He works the other wrist restraint.
Rook handles the ankle straps. The chest strap is harder. Jericho cuts it with a blade because the buckle is jammed.
Garrett tries to stand. His legs don’t hold. He goes down on one knee, and I catch him, my arms under his, his weight on me. His body is hot with fever and heavy with damage, but I’ve got him. I’ve got him, and the smell of him — over the blood and sweat and antiseptic — fills my nose: male, alpha… mate. My wolf makes a sound inside me that I’ve never heard from her. A sound of utter, wrenching relief.
“Can you walk?” I say against his ear, my mouth close enough that my lips brush his skin.
“If you give me a minute.”
“You don’t have a minute. We have about three minutes before the shift change ends, and forty guards figure out we’re here. Can you walk?”
“Then get me up.”
I get him up. Conner takes his other side. Between the two of us, we haul him to his feet, and his arm goes across my shoulders. His weight settles onto me, and my knees almost buckle. I lock them because my knees do not buckle. Not now.
“The cells,” I say to Rook. “The guard said three prisoners.”
Rook is already at the first cell door with Willow close by. The keycard works. He pulls the door open. Inside — a woman. Young. Thin. Curled on a cot with her arms over her head. She flinches when the light hits her.
“We’re getting you out,” Rook says. “Can you walk?”
She stares at him. Doesn’t move.
“I’ll bring her,” Willow says. Rook nods and moves to the second door. Another prisoner: a man, older, who gets to his feet immediately and says nothing and walks out of the cell on his own.
Third door. The keycard flashes red. Jericho tries it again. Red.
“Higher security,” Jericho says. “Different clearance level.” He examines the lock. “This is… I haven’t seen this configuration before. This is above standard detention.”
“Break it,” Brenna says.
“Brenna, we’re running out of—”
“Break it.”
Jericho works the lock. Not the pick set this time, brute force, his shoulder against the door, the lock mechanism groaning under pressure that isn’t entirely human. Jericho is a dragon. Even restrained, even operating in human form, his strength exceeds what any wolf could bring to a steel door.
The lock gives. The door opens.
Inside, the cell is different. Reinforced walls. Thicker door. And in the corner, on the floor — not a cot, the floor — is a figure.
Male. Chained. Not the standard detention restraints. These are heavy chains, bolted to the wall at four points, the links thick enough that even Jericho’s eyebrows rise. The chains have runes cut into them, different from the dampening cuffs on Garrett. Older. More complex.