Page 148 of The Hyena’s Guardian

The warmth that moved sharply through the bond afterward answered before Theron could.

Matt grinned. “Wow. Okay. That’s useful information.”

Theron looked genuinely offended now. “I regret surviving the mountain.”

“That’s fair.”

***

The conference room felt too bright after the mountain.

Matt sat slouched in one of the reinforced chairs near the far end of the table while a medic wrapped fresh gauze around the cuts crossing his forearm. Across from him, Vale stood beside one of the wall monitors with a tablet in her hand while several Valker operatives organized reports and recovery data from the collapse site.

Theron remained near the back wall beside the windows.

He was not hiding, but he clearly had not decided what to do with himself in a room full of people yet either. Even exhausted, he carried stillness differently than everyone around him. Most wolves burned through adrenaline with restless movement or forced conversation. Theron simply watched the room with the quiet awareness that had kept him alive beneath the mountain for centuries.

And the room noticed him.

Matt caught operatives glancing toward Theron every few seconds before quickly pretending they had not. Hard not to stare at the ancient wolf who had walked out of a buried supernatural prison looking vaguely irritated by fluorescent lighting.

Vale finally looked up from her tablet. “Alright. Let’s try this again now that everyone has consumed caffeine and stopped actively bleeding.”

“One of those problems remains unresolved,” Matt muttered.

“You’re conscious enough to complain, so medically you’re fine.”

“That feels inaccurate.”

“It usually is,” one of the medics replied without looking up.

Matt sighed dramatically while the medic tightened the bandage around his arm hard enough to make him wince.

Theron noticed and concern brushed sharply through the bond before he pushed away from the wall and crossed the room in complete silence. Several operatives shifted aside automatically to make room for him without seeming fully aware they were doing it.

Theron stopped beside Matt’s chair. “You are injured.”

“Technically.”

The medic snorted softly. “He lost a fight with a collapsing mountain.”

“I won,” Matt corrected.

“Debatable.”

Theron’s eyes narrowed as he studied the bruising along Matt’s throat and jaw. The concern moving through the bond no longer carried panic beneath it, but it still tightened every time Matt moved wrong or breathed too sharply.

Matt reached over and brushed his fingers lightly against Theron’s wrist beneath the table. “I’m okay.”

The reassurance carried clearly through the bond, and Theron relaxed beside him.

Vale noticed that too, though she wisely chose not to comment on it. Instead she tapped the monitor behind her, bringing up satellite scans of the destroyed monastery and the collapsed mountain beneath it.

“The collapse sealed the lower chambers completely,” she said. “Satellite imaging confirms the fracture stabilized approximately four hours after detonation. Thermal scans show no surviving voids beneath the throne chamber.”

One of the operatives near the far side of the room took a step forward. “So there’s nothing left down there?”

“Nothing accessible,” Vale corrected.