Sera found Dax and Lumi waiting where she'd left them, hidden in the treeline outside the compound. The sun had moved across the sky while she was inside talking to Elena, and the shadows were growing longer. Dax had his arms crossed, every muscle tense, ready to burst through the gates the moment something went wrong.
She told them everything.
Elena. The experiments. The history of Shadow Fang's obsession with Royal Blood. The thirty-seven children in cages. The boy who might die. The cost that had been paid in children's lives for thirty years. The grandmother she never knew she had.
Dax listened without interrupting. His jaw tightened with each word. His hands, resting on his knees, curled slowly into fists. She could feel his anger through the bond — cold and hot at once, the fury o
