I stand on the observation deck above the courtyard, my heavily bandaged hands gripping the cold steel railing. Kade stands beside me, his right arm wrapped securely around my waist. Through the mate bond, I feel his profound, suffocating paternal terror, masked by a fortress of cold, tactical observation.
In the center of the courtyard, Asher is sitting cross-legged on the moss-draped ancestral stone. He is dressed in a simple, dark tactical tunic, his white-and-black hair cropped short. His mismatched eyes are closed. The shimmering, metallic silver veins on his forearms are pulsing in time with his breathing.
Beside him sits Leo, the ten-year-old human boy from the integration class. Leo’s forearms are traced with the faint, bioluminescent golden veins of the Adapted. He looks terrifi
