Chapter 144: Your Face Is Saying Proud, Tavian

The sergeant swiped. Read the screen. Swiped again.

"Sir, both detainees have already been released."

The privacy barrier hummed. Neither Landon nor Tavian spoke.

"The Emberclaw Alpha posted bail for both. Fifteen thousand for Maria Emberclaw. Two hundred and fifty thousand for Nova Emberclaw." The sergeant looked between the two wolves at his counter. "They were released a few hours ago."

"When exactly?" Landon and Tavian asked at the same time, their voices overlapping with the synchronized urgency of two wolves who had just received the same bad news and were now doing math on how far behind they were.

The sergeant checked the timestamp. "Approximately four hours ago, sirs."

Tavian looked at Landon. Landon looked at Tavian. Four hours. Maverick Emberclaw had been in Thunderfang territory for four hours with both women and neither of them had known about it.

"There’s also a note on Nova’s file, Alpha." The sergeant dropped his voice, glancing at the chief, who gave a small nod. "Off the record. During processing, there was a system anomaly. Her name defaulted to Thunderfang initially, which the intake officer flagged as a registry glitch. Continental law requires a verified surname for release. Without one, the detainee would have been held until the system resolved, which can take up to five business days."

The sergeant looked at both of them.

"Alpha Emberclaw provided his surname to clear the hold. He registered her as his wife. It’s already in the continental registry."

The silence in the privacy barrier was the silence of two wolves processing the fact that the Emberclaw Alpha had walked into a Thunderfang correctional facility and walked out with a woman who was already filed as a Thunderfang wife under the Alpha’s name, refiled her as an Emberclaw wife under his name, paid a quarter million in bail, and left. Four hours ago. While both of them were in the same city doing other things.

"His wife," Tavian repeated.

"That’s what the registry says, sir."

"She should be listed as Thunderfang. My wife. Thunderfang was not a glitch," Landon stated.

Tavian gave Landon a look that said, come again? Landon gave Tavian a look that said, yes, wife.

The sergeant looked between them, then directed his attention to the Alpha. "Alpha Thunderfang, if we had known she was yours, we would have contacted you directly. Standard protocol for any detained spouse of a ranked wolf. But the girl didn’t identify herself as Thunderfang. She didn’t say anything, actually." He scrolled through the booking notes. "There are zero notations on her file indicating she spoke during intake, processing, or holding. She was the cooperative one. And we weren’t expecting two of them when the SWAT team dropped."

"SWAT team," Landon repeated.

"Yes, Alpha. The High Luna authorized a Tactical Response Unit deployment. Full threat protocol. Priority Red extraction order. Full tactical unit. Armed response. She designated the target as a lethal-class threat requiring maximum containment."

Landon and Tavian looked at each other. The look contained a full debrief, a psychological evaluation, and the mutual acknowledgment that the High Luna had lost her goddamn mind.

The intake officer dropped his voice again, like he didn’t trust the privacy barrier. "There’s a restricted note attached to her intake file, Alpha. Submitted directly by the High Luna. The woman was believed to be making an attempt on Prince Derek’s life. We took the assassination threat seriously."

Silence.

Neither man moved. Landon was buffering. Tavian was loading.

Tavian recovered first. "Okay. Time out. Flag on the play. Technical foul. Did you say assassination threat, or did I have a stroke?"

"Yes, Beta Voltcrest."

"Okay. Yep. Great. Love that. An assassination charge. On Nova. The most polite person I have ever met. Filed by her grandmother-in-law. This is fine. Everything is fine," Tavian said.

Landon’s brain rebooted and was working again. "Were any weapons found on either of them?"

"No weapons found on the primary target, Alpha. Maria Emberclaw was the one carrying a burst-spray deterrent, military grade. She deployed it into the face of the arresting officer when the tactical unit attempted to touch the primary. The officer went down. His partner moved in. She sprayed him too. That’s part of Maria’s assault charges, actually."

Tavian pressed his fingers to his temples. "I gave her that canister, Landon. After the attacks. I literally gave her that last night and told her to not hesitate to use it. And she said, ’Tavian, I would just shift into my wolf’ and I said, ’there are times you won’t be able to shift, baby.’ And she took it with her. And used it. My beautiful mate pepper-sprayed a SWAT team. For your wife, Landon."

Landon looked at Tavian. "Are you proud of her right now?"

"Conflicted."

"You look proud."

"I said conflicted."

"Your face is saying proud, Tavian."

"My face is handling a lot right now, Landon. Let it work."

"On the same day my grandmother deployed a tactical unit on an unarmed woman for a crime she didn’t commit."

"That is the sequence of events, yes. That has been established, Alpha."

The officer looked between them like a man watching a tennis match where the ball was on fire.

"The future Beta Luna was doing her job. She sprayed your officers because they were putting hands on an innocent woman. All charges are dropped on her and on Nova," Landon ordered.

"Yes, Alpha."

"And change Nova’s last name back to Thunderfang."

"Yes, Alpha. We can push that through. However, the Emberclaw bio-encryption he placed on her file may take a few business days to override. Alpha Emberclaw tied her credentials to his pack’s security network when he registered her. I believe it was due to the charges. There’s only so much information we’re able to share with a detainee, and otherwise she would have had no way to defend herself or access legal counsel. The encryption gave her Emberclaw protections."

Landon processed that in silence. The Emberclaw Alpha hadn’t given Nova his name because he was staking a claim. He had done it because the system was designed to leave people like her without a voice and his name was the only tool that could give her one before she disappeared into a five-day bureaucratic hold.

That didn’t make it acceptable. But it made it understandable. And the distance between those two things was where Landon was going to live until this was sorted.