Page 95 of Tracked and Taken

“I know, Natalie.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. Keep moving.”

His rosettes have been releasing since we entered. Protection-state. Warm wood and spice pushed sharply. I can smell it. Mine. Do not touch. After last night I know what that chemistry means. In here, it is a warning.

JINX: “South patrol thirty meters behind you. Two meters of concealment at chamber 48-D.”

“In, Natalie.”

He pulls me into 48-D. Empty alcove. He puts me in the corner and covers me with his body. Tail around my waist — not last night. A lock. His chest a wall.

Mouth at my ear.

“Don’t breathe.”

I don’t.

Footsteps. Heavy. Unhurried. Men who belong here. Three seconds. Four. Receding.

JINX: “Clear.”

His tail loosens one coil. Not all of it. His mouth is still at my ear.

“Nat.”

My pulse answers before I do.

“Tael.”

“We move. Stay closer.”

“Copy.”

Torek is in 47-C.

I see him before the panel.

Observation slab. Wrist restraints worn smooth on the inside — weeks of a bonded male twisting in his sleep. Skin raw under the leather. The same clothes they took him in. Unwashed. Maren’s scent strong enough I catch it through the vent.

They did not even change him.

The anger arrives clean. Not grief. Not the professional tightness I use at a scene. Fury. They farmed him. They left him in the shirt he was wearing when they pulled him off a station, and they opened two ports in his arms, and they let a depression wear into the headrest in the shape of one skull because moving him was not in the protocol.

IV in the right arm. Second cannula in the left elbow, tape yellowed. Two sampling ports. They have been taking from him on a schedule.

The headrest has a depression worn into it. One skull. One position. Weeks.

I photograph it. My hands are steady. I do not know how. The photograph is the only thing I am allowed to do with the anger, so I do it.

Pulse: forty-eight.

REM under the sedation. He is fighting it in his sleep.

The monitor has two logos. Severin BioSystems — the V-6 anchor stamp. Beside it: two interlocking hexagons, offset, sharing an edge. Partner mark. I photograph it. I send it to Flossie.

“Tael.”