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He could feel Sloane through the bond. Not distress. Focus. Bright, sharp, aimed like a blade.

He shifted at the tree line, the change ripping through him in a familiar crack of bone and sinew, and hit the ground running on four legs. The western fence came into view through the pines, and he saw them.

Five wolves. Three already inside the perimeter, two more working the fence. They moved with coordination he hadn’t seen from Garrett’s people before. No wild charges. No snarling posture. They fanned out in a pattern that cut the defender’s sight lines, forcing anyone at the breach point to choose which angle to cover.

Sloane had chosen all of them.

She was in wolf form twenty yards ahead, grey fur dark with dew, holding the gap between two of the intruders with a speed that should not have been possible for a wolf fighting alone. She’d driven one back to the fence with a feint and was already turning on the second when Chris reached her.

He hit the nearest wolf from the flank, no warning, no hesitation. The impact sent it tumbling sideways into the brush. It scrambled up snarling, and Chris was already on it, his weight pinning its shoulders, teeth at the scruff of its neck. It went still.

Sloane took her opening. With Chris covering the left angle, she committed fully to the wolf she’d been holding and put it down in two moves. Quick, clean. The kind of fighting she did when she stopped thinking about whether she deserved to win.

Two patrol guards arrived from the south path. Chris barked once, short, directing them to the fence where the remaining intruders were pulling back into the trees. They gave chase. One of Garrett’s wolves got caught at the fence line. The other two melted into the dark.

It was over in less than four minutes.

From the east side of the compound, the alarm cut out. Chris felt the silence settle like a change in air pressure. He shifted back, found the clothes cache at the western post, and dressed fast.

Sloane shifted behind him. He heard her breathing, hard but controlled.

“East?” she asked, breathless.

“Kahn had it.” Chris pulled his shirt over his head. “Viktor said six on that side.”

“Six east, five west. Eleven total.” She was thinking out loud, the same way she did in briefings. “He split them almost evenly.”

“He wanted to know which side we’d commit to.”

“He wanted to know if we could handle both.”

Damian came jogging up the western path, a radio in one hand. His hair was sticking up on one side, and he had a boot knife strapped over bare feet, which under other circumstances would have been funny.

“East is clear,” Damian said. “Kahn’s got two down, the rest scattered. No casualties on our side. Petra took a bite to the forearm, nothing bad.” He looked between Chris and Sloane. “You two good?”

“Fine,” Chris said.

“Fine,” Sloane said.

Damian glanced at the downed wolf Chris had pinned, now held by the patrol guards. “That one’s young. Barely adult.”

Chris looked. Damian was right. The wolf was barely grown, ribs visible through its coat, trembling under the guard’s grip. He filed it away but said nothing. That was a detail for the briefing, not the field.

“Tell Viktor I want the inner circle in the patrol office in twenty minutes,” Chris said. “Full debrief.”

Damian nodded and headed back.

The western perimeter was still now. The tree line stood dark against a sky that was just starting to lighten at its lowest edge. Chris walked the fence, checking the breach point. The wires had been cut clean. Not torn, not forced. Cut with a tool. He crouched, ran his fingers along the severed ends.

“Wire cutters,” he said.

Sloane came up beside him. She’d pulled her hair back, and there was a scratch along her collarbone, thin and red. She crouched next to him.

“Same at the east gate last time,” she said. “Tools, not teeth.”

“He’s equipping them.”

“He’s organizing them.” She stood. “The timing, Chris. Three-second gap between the alarms. That’s not two groups acting independently. That’s a countdown. Someone gave a signal.”