“What?”
“Think beyond your own body.”
I lift my head and look at her.
Her expression is patient but urgent. “Think,” she repeats.
I close my eyes.
I push past the belly, past my wolf’s protective instinct, past the relief that’s still settling. Past the surface of my own body to the thing underneath it. Him. The place where he exists in me like a second heartbeat.
He’s not moving. Contained. I can feel resolve in him, the flat, deliberate steadiness of a man who’s already made his decision and is executing it. Underneath the resolve, something harder. Grim. The quality of a person who has consciously chosen a path that will cost them and is walking it anyway.
Then a flare. Sharp. The bright signal of pain that has to punch through his effort to shield me from it. He’s trying to hide it. Some of it gets through anyway.
“He’s in trouble,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
“He— Oh God. Oh God, Greta, what do I do?”
My breath is coming in short pulls I can’t seem to regulate. I press both hands flat on my knees and wait for them to slow. Panic is unfamiliar to me.
“I don’t know. That’s what you need to find out. But you can’t find out alone, and you can’t help him alone. Your wolf knows this.” Greta’s hand tightens on my shoulder. “Go to the alphas. Now.”
I stand up. My legs are unsteady. Something pulls against my ribs, and I can feel the details of what’s happening to him more clearly by the second — a vehicle, the rhythm of movement, the sense of him being taken somewhere.
“Greta—”
“Briar! Go!”
I go.
Merric and Brenna are out at the dam when I find them. Brenna leaning against Merric’s shoulder. Together, thank God.Though they’ve spent most of their time together since the hearings began.
Brenna looks up as I arrive and registers my face. She touches Merric’s arm. He swivels to look at me.
“What happened?”
“I need to talk to you. Both of you. Inside.”
They don’t ask questions. We go back to the lodge.
The kitchen is occupied when we come through. Conner at the table with his hands around a coffee cup. Willow beside him. They look up when we come in, read the three of us, and Conner sets his mug down slowly.
“What’s going on?” Willow asks.
Brenna pulls out a chair. Sits. Merric stays standing by the door. They’re both looking at me, and so are Conner and Willow, and there’s no version of this that doesn’t require me to start revealing the truth.
“Garrett’s in trouble,” I say. “Something’s happening to him. I think he’s been taken. I think he gave himself up to someone.”
Conner goes very still.
“When?” Brenna says.
“In the last hour.”
Merric’s hand curls into a fist and then loosens. “The Syndicate.”