POV: Ayla / Caius

Caius does not ask if I want to leave the compound. He tells me we are leaving, and the way he says it leaves no room for the kind of argument that would only keep me inside the same walls a little longer.

“Ryker has the morning rotations,” he says. “Zane is running the next pass on the ledger codes. The sealed file request is already with the council advocates. Nothing that happens in the next six hours requires you to sit in another room full of paper. We are going out.”

I look at him for a long moment. The bond carries the quiet firmness...