The first thing Eli heard was the alarm.

Not the familiar two-note warning that meant another injection. This one screamed through the laboratory without stopping. Somewhere beyond his cage, men shouted, boots struck concrete, and something heavy crashed against a locked door.

Eli curled tighter against the bars.

He had learned that noise meant pain. The louder the noise, the worse the pain that followed.

His collar clicked against the floor. He grabbed it with both hands, terrified the sound would bring a handler running.

A red light flashed over the room. Across the aisle, the other cages stood empty. The people who had occupied them had disappeared weeks ago. Nobody had told Eli where they went.

He had stopped asking questions years before he stopped speaking.

A tremendous impact shook the corridor.

“Dominion military! Hands where I can see them!”

The voice was deep, commanding. Alpha.

Eli pressed his forehead to his knees.

The laboratory door burst inward. Cold air rushed across his bare ankles, carrying unfamiliar scents: rain, gun oil, pine, and five distinct wolves.

He had never smelled wolves like these.

“Clear,” someone said.

“Check the medical wing.”

“General, there's another room.”

Footsteps approached. Eli counted them automatically. One. Two. Three. Too many to identify, too many to anticipate.

The light changed as a tall man blocked the doorway.

For a moment nobody spoke.

“Jesus Christ,” a rough voice whispered.

Eli knew that voice wasn't speaking to him. Still, his body reacted. He lowered his face and pulled his elbows close, making himself smaller.

A second man entered. Black hair, gray eyes, a dark military coat marked with silver insignia. The others shifted aside for him.

Eli understood rank even without understanding the symbols. In the laboratory, the most important men never needed to raise their voices.

The black-haired Alpha looked at the cage.

“Who authorized this?”

Nobody answered.

A blond man crouched beside a metal desk and examined a folder. His expression tightened.

“Subject Seven,” he said. “Male Omega. Twenty-three. Repeated suppression exposure. Severe malnutrition.”

Eli recognized his number. He flinched, expecting the next instruction.

The Alpha in the coat turned toward him.

“My name is Adrian Blackwood,” he said. “We're getting you out.”

Eli stared at the floor.

He had heard promises before. Clean clothes. A better room. A meal if he behaved. Every promise had ended with another locked door.

A large man with auburn hair stepped forward. “Give me the bolt cutters.”

“No,” the blond man said quietly. “The locking mechanism is wired into his collar. We need to isolate the current first.”

Eli's hands flew to his throat.

The blond Alpha noticed. “I'm Lucien. I won't touch it without telling you.”

He spoke slowly, as though each word could be placed gently between the bars.

Eli didn't believe him. But the man kept his hands visible.

A dark-haired officer opened the electrical panel. He worked without speaking, while a younger, pale-haired Alpha stood guard at the doorway.

“Power disconnected,” the quiet officer said.

The auburn-haired man cut through the cage lock. Metal snapped. Eli jerked backward hard enough to strike his shoulder against the wall.

“Ronan,” Adrian said sharply.

“I know.” The big Alpha stepped away, his face twisting. “I didn't mean to scare him.”

Before the soldiers arrived, Eli had been counting cracks in the wall. There were thirty-one near the ceiling and eleven beside the drain. Counting gave him something to do when the lights stayed on for days. He had never known whether the people outside called it morning or night. Now the corridor was full of strangers who spoke about choices as though choices were ordinary things. He wanted to understand. He was terrified of understanding incorrectly.

The cage door swung outward.

There was nothing between Eli and the room now.

He stared at the open space.

Nobody pulled him out. Nobody ordered him to crawl. He waited for the test to reveal itself.

Adrian lowered himself into a crouch, leaving several feet between them.

“You can come out whenever you're ready.”

Ready.

The word meant nothing.

Eli looked from the open door to Adrian's polished boots. The laboratory had taught him what to do when a powerful Alpha stood nearby. He could survive this. He knew the sequence.

He crawled out.

Then he knelt.

His knees struck the concrete. He bent his head and moved his hair away from his neck, exposing the scarred skin surrounding the suppression collar.

Silence filled the room.

He held perfectly still.

He knew that stillness sometimes shortened what came next.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Lucien breathed.

Eli shuddered at the unfamiliar word.

Ronan made a low, furious sound. Eli immediately flattened himself further.

“Outside,” Adrian said.

Ronan turned away at once. His boots retreated down the corridor.

Eli's heart hammered. He had angered one of them. There would be consequences.

Adrian took off his military coat and laid it on the floor, within reach but not touching Eli.

“That's for you,” he said. “You don't have to wear it.”

Eli stared at the fabric. It looked thick and warm. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had offered him something without demanding repayment.

Behind Adrian, the pale-haired officer spoke for the first time.

“Sir. We have transport. The facility's director is in custody.”

“Cassian, make sure every record is preserved.”

“Yes, General.”

The quiet officer returned from the panel. He had pale blue eyes and a small cut on his cheek.

“Silas,” Adrian said, “secure the rear exit.”

Silas glanced at Eli. Unlike the others, he did not step closer.

He simply nodded and left.

Eli noticed that. He noticed everything.

Adrian waited.

Eventually Eli reached toward the coat with two fingers. He touched the lining, then withdrew his hand.

“It's yours,” Adrian repeated.

Yours.

Eli looked up for half a second. The man's eyes were steady, but not empty. Eli didn't know what to make of them.

He pulled the coat over his shoulders. It swallowed him, its sleeves falling past his fingertips.

Lucien exhaled carefully.

“We need to examine the collar once we're somewhere safe,” he said. “Not here.”

Safe was another word Eli didn't understand.

When Adrian stood, Eli flinched. Adrian stopped moving.

“I'm going to walk to the door,” he explained. “You may follow, or Lucien can stay with you.”

Eli watched the empty cage.

He had lived there so long that the open door seemed more frightening than the bars.

He followed on hands and knees.

Adrian turned, saw him, and went still.

“You can stand,” he said gently.

Eli tried. His legs trembled. He managed three steps before his strength failed.

Ronan appeared in the corridor, carrying a medical stretcher. This time he approached slowly and set it down well away from Eli.

“No one is going to make you walk,” he said, his rough voice unusually soft.

Eli stared at the stretcher. Restraints had once been attached to one just like it.

He backed away.

“Then we don't use it,” Adrian said immediately.

The general lowered himself to the floor again.

For the first time in his life, Eli saw an Alpha with the power to command everyone in the room waiting for permission from him.

It was so impossible that he began to shake.

Adrian extended an open hand, palm upward, and stopped short of Eli's reach.

“No hurry.”

Eli looked at the hand. At the doorway. At the cage.

Then he touched Adrian's sleeve.

Only for a moment.

Adrian did not close his fingers around him.

And somehow, that frightened Eli most of all.