The prisoner’s lips were cracked, and dried blood caked on his jawline. But his eyes were defiant as I stepped into the cell. He looked too ordinary to be dangerous—wiry, sun-worn, shaking slightly from blood loss. But Ryker’s guards had found him hiding among the trees near the northern ridge, not far from the ruins of the last ambush site. He hadn’t put up much of a fight. He hadn’t needed to.
He wanted to be caught.
I paced in front of him, my boots scraping against the stone floor. “Start talking.”
He smirked, revealing a missing tooth. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Ryker stood against the wall, arms crossed, silent. His presence steadied me, but just barely. The prisoner’s voice was like a thorn in my throat.
“You were there in the forest when your team was slaughtered. You w
