Page 78 of Warded By His Wolf

I look toward the head of the table. He appears exactly as he always has: controlled, unreadable, impossible to move. But I can see what the others can't: the faint strain around his eyes, the exhaustion buried beneath the strength of his wolf. He's been making it look like power for so long no one remembers the difference.

I do. I always did. Once, I knew the exact moment his silence meant anger and the exact moment it meant pain. I wonder if I still know.

His gaze lifts and finds mine. The bond gives one slow, warm pulse. Yes. Yes. Apparently I do.

I look away first. I say nothing. Not yet.

The briefing ends. Chairs scrape back. Wolves disperse. Roan pauses near the door long enough to give me one final assessing look. The intelligence operative trades a silent glance with Caleb before leaving. The tracker disappears without a sound.

I almost make it to the threshold.

"Ms. Wynn." I stop. "A moment."

The door closes behind the last wolf. Silence. Just us now. And the bond.

"That was a risk," he says. "Telling Gideon where to look before you'd told me."

"You'd have found it in a day. I saved you the day."

"That's not what I asked."

"No," I agree. "It isn't."

He doesn't push further. "The preliminary assessment. I need it before tomorrow's full evaluation. The lower archive access panel will give you the clearest read."

"I can do it now."

"Good." His jaw tightens. "I'll take you."

Not escort. Take. One word shouldn't matter. My pulse disagrees.

We walk in silence. The agency feels like Caleb made physical: clean lines, controlled access, nowhere for weakness to hide.

Halfway down the corridor he says, without looking at me, "You didn't have to come back for this."

"No."

"Then why did you?"

"Because you asked, and because the last time I ignored what was happening to this building, seven people died." I keep my eyes forward. "I'm not doing that again. Not because of you. Because of them."

He doesn't answer. I feel the words land anyway, through the bond, sharper than anything I could have said with my voice.

The lower archive sits two levels beneath the main building, behind a secured door that opens to Caleb's biometrics. Warm stone replaces steel. Old magic thickens the air: ozone, earth, power. This is the heart of Pack Guard. And something is killing it.

I cross to the primary access panel and place both palms against the stone.

The world disappears. The ward's whole structure unfolds beneath my hands: suppression grids, anchor nodes, containment lines. Fractures. So many fractures. I follow them deeper.

Then I find him. Caleb's magic is woven through everything. Not repairing the infrastructure. Replacing it.

My breath catches. Fourteen months of decay, hidden beneath a steady infusion of his own strength. Every time the system weakened, he gave it more, until the building stopped telling the difference between its own systems and the man keeping it alive.

Of course he did this. Of course the man who once held me like I was the one thing he couldn't afford to break would quietly break himself instead.

Anger burns through me, sharp enough to hide the ache under it. Some reckless part of me still wants to cross the room and make him stop.

The truth hits with brutal clarity. The building isn't surviving. He's dying in its place.