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Good. I turn my attention to the cell. Concrete walls, iron bars, a single drain in the corner. No windows. The corridor beyond is dimly lit, but I can see enough. Two guards at the far end. Armed. Alert. These aren't the lazy, half asleep sentries I dealt with years ago. These ones are watching. That tells me something. They're expecting trouble. Then I remember.

The keys.

The night before Darian and I escaped, I placed a skeleton key inside every cell I could reach. I knew I wouldn't be coming back. For four years, I'd helped prisoners escape whenever I could, and leaving meant there would be no one here to keep doing it. So I left them one final chance. I hid each key where the guards wouldn't easily find it, hoping that someday, when an opportunity came, those keys might still save someone's life.

My eyes move toward the hiding place in our cell. If no one found it, there's a key in here with us. But knowing that doesn't mean I can use it. Not yet.

I can't shift. My wolf is barely more than a faint presence inside me. Selena can't shift either, and she's heavily pregnant with a Lycan pup who could come at any moment. Two armed guards stand down the corridor watching us. Opening this cell without somewhere to go would only tell them we have a way out.

So I don't look toward the hiding place again. I watch the guards instead.

Their movements. Their weapons. How often they look our way. The corridor beyond them. Every sound coming from somewhere I can't see. I spent four years learning this place because knowing it helped me keep prisoners alive.

Now I need that knowledge to keep Selena alive. The key is here. I just need the right moment to use it. My children. The thought hits me like a physical blow. Damian. Darlene. Arian. They're with Paige at the pack house. Safe. I saw them there before Selena and I left. Silver Moon will protect them. I have to believe that.

“Darian knows I'm alive,” I tell Selena, because I need to hear it as much as she does. “Our mate bond is still intact. Something here is blocking us from communicating through it.”

Her hand presses against her chest. “The runes?”

I nod. “Like the ones from the first timeline.”

She closes her eyes for a moment. “I can still feel Rylan too.”

“Then they know we're alive.”

“And Rylan will be tearing apart the territory looking for us.”

Something shifts in her expression. Guilt.

“He told me to stay at the pack house.”

“He did.”

“And I Luna commanded fifteen guards not to tell him I left.”

Despite everything, I stare at her. She gives me a tiny grimace. “He's going to be mad.”

A laugh almost escapes me. Almost. “We're going to have a very long conversation about your decision making skills when we get home.”

“When,” she repeats, and the word carries weight.

Footsteps. Heavy. Purposeful. Coming down the corridor. My body reacts before my mind catches up. I move between Selena and the bars, positioning myself the way I did in the park. Between her and the threat. Always between her and the threat.

Danger.

"I know."

Stay between.

"Always."

The footsteps stop outside our cell. “Awake already.” A woman's voice. Smooth. Familiar. Every hair on my body stands on end. I know that voice.

Candice Vale.

She steps into the light, and memories crash over me. Same face. Same cruel smile. Same eyes that look at you like you're something she's deciding how to break. My stomach twists.

“Hello, Arlene.” Her voice is almost warm.