BLAKE POV
The Alpha's office is too quiet.
Blake Sterling stands in front of the desk with his hands at his sides and his face completely blank. This is how you stand when you're a Striker. When your job is to be a weapon instead of a person. You don't show anything. You don't feel anything. You just listen and nod and take the order.
The Alpha is talking about unrest. About rebellion. About a female causing problems in Torin's territory.
Blake has heard this speech before. Different versions. Same ending.
Someone needs to die. And Blake is the one who kills them.
"The rebellion is growing faster than we expected," the Alpha says. He's pacing behind his desk like he does when he's nervous. "Torin can't control it on his own. We need to eliminate the threat before it spreads to our territory."
Blake doesn't move. Doesn't blink.
"The female leading it is called Iris," the Alpha continues. "She was Torin's Luna. Now she's something else. Something dangerous."
The name lands but Blake doesn't react. He's trained for this. Trained to hear a name and turn it into a target. To take a person and turn them into a mission.
"You'll assemble a team," the Alpha says. "Infiltrate her compound. Gather evidence of her activities. Execute her and anyone standing with her. Make it quick. Make it clean. Then come home."
Blake nods because that's what you do when you're a Striker. You take the order and you don't question it and you do the job.
"Understood," Blake says. His voice sounds empty even to himself.
The Alpha stops pacing. He looks at Blake like he's trying to figure out if his weapon understands the importance of this mission.
"This is serious, Sterling," the Alpha says. "This female could destabilize everything we've built. She's smart. She's organized. She's not some desperate wolf making a desperate play. She's dangerous in ways we don't fully understand yet."
Blake's jaw tightens slightly. The only sign that anything the Alpha said actually registered.
"I've killed dangerous before," Blake says.
It's true. He's killed dozens of times. Males who challenged pack authority. Females who threatened stability. Wolves who broke the rules and had to be eliminated. He's good at it. Clean and efficient and never hesitating.
This should be the same.
But something about the way the Alpha said her name makes Blake's skin feel tight. Something about the description doesn't match the stories he's heard about the broken Luna.
The Alpha dismisses him with a wave. Blake turns and walks toward the door.
"Sterling," the Alpha calls out. Blake stops. "I want her dead. Not captured. Not interrogated. Dead. Understand?"
"Understood," Blake says.
He leaves the office and walks through the compound. Other Strikers nod at him. They know what the walk means. They know he just got an assignment. They know someone's going to die.
Blake finds his team in the training grounds. Five males. All of them scarred. All of them capable. All of them as empty as Blake is supposed to be.
"We've got a mission," Blake tells them. "We leave at dawn."
The males ask no questions. This is how it works. Orders come down. You follow them. You don't think about it.
Blake spends the afternoon preparing. Weapons. Maps. Information about Iris. The rebellion. The compound.
On paper, it looks simple. Go in. Kill the target. Come out alive.
But Blake keeps reading the information about Iris and something doesn't make sense.
The reports say she disappeared two years ago. The whispers say she killed herself. The official story is that she was too weak to handle rejection.
But the intelligence says something different. It says she's been building a network. Reaching out to wolves across multiple territories. Organizing them. Teaching them. Preparing them for something.
That's not desperation. That's strategy.
Blake stares at the photograph they have of Iris. It's from before everything fell apart. She's standing beside Torin at some pack event. She's wearing white. She's smiling.
She looks broken.
But Blake has learned that photographs lie. That smiles hide things. That the most dangerous wolves are the ones nobody expects to be dangerous.
He's about to put the photograph down when his brother Cross appears in his quarters.
"We need to talk," Cross says.
Blake doesn't look up. He keeps staring at the photograph.
"I'm preparing for a mission," Blake says.
"I know," Cross replies. "That's why we need to talk."
Cross is the oldest. He was groomed for leadership. He chose to be a warrior instead. He understands Blake in ways other people don't. But he also understands the pack in ways that make him careful.
Blake finally looks at his brother.
"What?" Blake asks.
Cross closes the door. He sits down across from Blake and looks at the photograph in Blake's hands.
"Be careful out there," Cross says. "I have a feeling this female isn't what you think she is."
Blake sets the photograph down.
"She's a target," Blake says. "That's all I need to know."
"That's not true," Cross says. "And you know it."
Blake stands up. He doesn't want to have this conversation. Conversations like this make him feel things he's not supposed to feel. Make him question orders he's not supposed to question.
"She's dangerous," Blake says. "The Alpha made that clear."
"I'm not saying she isn't dangerous," Cross says. "I'm saying be careful about what dangerous means. The pack defines it one way. But that doesn't mean it's the only way."
Blake walks to the window. Outside, he can see other Strikers training. Other males learning how to be weapons. Learning how to follow orders without thinking about what those orders mean.
Learning how to disappear.
"Why are you telling me this?" Blake asks.
Cross is quiet for a moment.
"Because I see something in you that's starting to break," Cross says. "And I think this mission might finish the breaking. And I want you to understand that breaking isn't always bad. Sometimes breaking is the only way to become something new."
Blake doesn't turn around. He keeps looking out the window at the males training below.
"I'm a Striker," Blake says. "Breaking isn't part of my job."
"No," Cross says. "But being human is."
Blake hears his brother stand up. Hears him walk toward the door.
"Be careful out there," Cross says again. "And Blake? When you see her, really see her, I think you might understand what I'm trying to tell you."
Cross leaves before Blake can respond.
Blake stands at the window for a long time after that. He thinks about what his brother said. About breaking. About seeing people clearly. About the difference between dangerous and necessary.
He thinks about the photograph of Iris with her broken smile.
And he thinks about why the Alpha wants her dead so quickly.
The Alpha said it was because she's dangerous. But Blake has killed dangerous before and it's never required this kind of urgency. This kind of specific instruction to leave no survivors.
Blake picks up the photograph again.
He studies Iris's face. Tries to see past the smile. Tries to understand what his brother meant about seeing her clearly.
And for the first time in his career as a Striker, Blake feels something he's not supposed to feel.
Doubt.
At dawn, Blake and his team set out toward the abandoned warehouse where Iris is supposed to be hiding.
As they get closer, Blake receives an encrypted message on his secure phone. It's from an unknown number. Just seven words.
"Don't bother infiltrating. She's expecting you."
Blake stops his team. He reads the message three times. He tries to trace where it came from but the signal is already gone.
Someone inside the rebellion is reporting to him. Someone on the inside is helping him.
Or someone is setting a trap.
And Blake realizes that his brother was right about one thing.
This female is nothing like what he thought she was.
And when he finally meets her, everything he believes about his job is about to change forever.