We do not announce our return.
The packhouse absorbs us quietly, gates opening without ceremony, guards straightening and then relaxing as familiar faces cross back into territory, and there is something unsettling about how easily normality snaps back into place after blood and chaos and the knowledge that someone deliberately tried to break us in the forest. The bond hums low and steady beneath my ribs, not urgent now, not strained, just watchful, like it knows this part matters just as much as the fight did.
Justin is waiting near the command corridor when we step inside, his posture controlled but his eyes sharp, scanning faces, counting bodies, looking for gaps before relief has a chance to settle.
“You’re all back,” he says.
“Yes,” Adam replies. “Everyone.”
That is when Justin e
