Jaxen POV
The detention center smelled like industrial cleaner, old fear, and the flat chemical nothing of fluorescent lights.
My wolf hated it on contact.
The air was wrong, stripped of anything living.
Every breath scraped against instincts that had never been meant for cages and concrete.
Liliana looked smaller than I remembered.
Shoulders curled inward, face pale under the harsh lights, the fight already drained out of her.
When the guard said she had a visitor, her eyes lit up for half a second.
Hope. The last scrap of it.
Then she saw me, and the light died as if someone had cut the power.
She sat like a dog that had already been kicked too many times.
The scent of her resignation was thick enough to taste—bitter, defeated.
My wolf watched her without interest.
Sh
