(Cassian POV)
We were already on the move when it hit me.
No warning. No time to brace. One heartbeat, I was running point through the eastern forest, listening to the soft cadence of my unit behind me—Kane on my left, Jax ghosting our right flank, two more fanning wide—and the next heartbeat, something tore through my ribs like a hooked blade.
I dropped.
The ground didn't catch me so much as swallow me whole. Leaves, dirt, cold bark—none of it mattered. The pain lit up every nerve, then ripped them clean. My lungs seized. My vision went white at the edges. The howl that left my mouth wasn't human.
"Cass!" Kane slid in, catching my shoulder before my skull met rock. "Talk to me. What is it?"
I couldn't answer. Ferox roared inside me—a long, wavering, high-pitched cry, of grief that shook the cage of my bones.
Tamsin.
I felt the truth of it before I could think it. The bond didn't fray. It didn't dim. It snapped. The absence was a vacuum, sudden and obscene, a silence where her pulse had brushed against mine.
Jax lifted a hand, signaling the others to back off. "Give him space," he said, voice low. They knew. Every wolf knew. You don't crowd a grieving mate; you circle and make a perimeter.
Kane pressed a canteen to my palm. My fingers closed so hard the metal bent. Water sloshed over my knuckles. I didn't drink. I just breathed until breath came back as something more than a knife.
The forest remembered to make noise. A moth rattled in the brush. Far off, an owl muttered a question the night couldn't answer.
"She's gone," I said at last. The words were glass. I swallowed the shards.
Ferox whined—low, raw. Mine.
I pressed my fist against my sternum, like I could keep whatever remained of her from leaking out. It was stupid. I did it anyway.
Jax drifted a few paces away, thumbed his comm. "Base, this is Scout Three," he murmured. "We have a confirmed severance on Commander Cassian. Mark it—mate loss."
Static cracked. Then Dorian's voice came steady through the line—steady, but edged. "How bad?"
Jax's eyes found mine. I shook my head once. He swallowed. "He's upright," he said carefully. "Functional. But… sir."
A breath on the channel. Steel sliding into place. "Bring him in if you must," Dorian said. "But find her body. Tamsin does not get left in the dark."
"Acknowledged."
I pushed to my knees. The world tilted, then steadied under the weight of practice. Ritual takes over when the soul doesn't know what to do.
"Her last ping?" I asked.
"Half a klick north," Kane answered. "Signal jammed right after."
"Human tech," Jax added. "HJL cell, most likely."
The Human Justice League. Scales over a burning sun. I tasted metal.
"Move," I said.
We went silent. The unit flowed around me, a living ring.
We fanned. I let my knees touch the ground. Closed my eyes. Listened.
There.
Faint as spent thunder, Tamsin's scent curled along the dirt—wildflowers and rain, the clean edge of steel, the warm curl of something that had always felt like home.
Blood. Gunpowder. Silver.
I pressed my fingers to the ground, and the earth came away damp and dark, rich with the last trace of her.
"Bring me a vial," I said quietly. My voice didn't sound like mine.
Kane fumbled in his kit.
I scooped a handful of soil where her scent lingered most, every motion deliberate. The dirt clung to my skin like blood. I tipped it into the cup and sealed it with my palm.
"She was here," I murmured. "And she fought."
Ferox pressed against me from the inside—a sound that wasn't a growl but a mourning call. I pressed my palm tighter over the cup, sealing in her scent like something sacred.
Without thinking, I bowed my head to the earth and whispered a promise in the old tongue, older than the crown.
I will carry you home. I will balance the debt.
When I stood, the cup still in my hand, I looked to my men. "Pack her scent," I ordered. "Every direction. If she's gone, I want to see where she fell."
They moved, heads down, no chatter. Boots mapped the circle in widening arcs. Jax flagged three distinct lines—drag marks, broken fern, a smear of blood too bright under the moon. One path ended in churned soil and a spatter across low brush.
Kane crouched by it, nostrils flaring. "Shot here," he said. "Silver jacket. She kept moving."
"Of course she did," I said, and for a heartbeat, pride shouldered grief aside.
Ferox paced inside me—restless, direction hunting. Her last turn. He pressed my gaze left, into the darker trees. I followed him.
There: a scuffed root, a heel print, the suggestion of a body bracing to shield another.
"Nyx," I said.
Jax's head snapped up. "You got her?"
"Her scent—faint. Overlaid with HJL solvent." I bared my teeth. "They masked her and took her alive."
Kane swore softly. "They'll move her to a lab."
"They already have," I said. It came out like a verdict.
Jax's comm crackled again. "Update," Dorian said. The steadiness was gone now; beneath it, something sharp. "Anything?"
"They took Nyx," I answered, taking the line. My voice was iron. "Alive."
A beat of silence.
"Then mobilize every asset," Dorian said, "Find. My. Mate."
"Copy," Jax said.
I thumbed my own channel to a private band. "Obsidian Guard, on me," I said, "We hunt."
"Cass," Kane said softly, falling into step. "You sure you're good to run?"
No.
"Yes," I said. "Ferox won't sit for this."
We swept the site one final pass. I took the cup, wrapped it in cloth, and stowed it in my chest pouch where my heart could keep watch over it. I would not leave her here.
I stood in the center of the ruined circle, facing my team. "Two priorities," I said, crisp and quiet. "Recover Tamsin. Recover the Princess. Anyone in our way is a problem that does not survive the night."
Nods. No questions.
Jax lifted his head, listening. "Drones inbound," he said. "Our birds."
"Good. We fly dark and drop closer." I glanced at the moon, set like a blade on the horizon. "HJL thinks they hunt. Tonight, they learn we are the ones the dark belongs to."
Kane's eyes cut to the tin cup at my chest. "What do you want done with…?"
"Catalog the site," I said. "Mark it for retrieval and rites. No flames." I hesitated, then added, "Not yet."
He dipped his chin.
I turned my face to the wind and caught it: the faintest thread of Nyx—electric, stubborn, alive—dragged across the air like a wire. With it, the sterile tang of bleach. Ozone. Machines.
A lab, then.
"Jax," I said, voice dropping. "Patch me back to the King."
A click. "You're up."
"Your Majesty," I said, and formality steadied my hands. "Recommend full sanction on HJL assets within this zone."
On the far end, Dorian's breath moved once, slow. "Sanction granted," he said.
I cut the line and looked to my unit.
"Move," I said.
We ran.
The forest blurred to a corridor, the night to a single direction. I felt the weight of the tin over my heart and the absence under it, both urging me forward. I would not fail either of them.
And we hunted.