Page 150 of The Hyena’s Guardian

“That is possibly the rudest way anyone has ever referred to me,” Theron observed dryly.

A few startled laughs broke around the room. Even Matt nearly choked on his coffee.

The younger operative flushed. “That is not what I meant.”

“I know.”

The poor guy somehow looked even more nervous afterward.

Vale pinched the bridge of her nose briefly. “Guardian was a designation, not an identity. Nobody knew who, or what, was down here.”

Theron went very still beside Matt’s chair. Matt felt a subtle shift move through the bond, too subdued to be anger.

The younger operative straightened. “Right. Sorry. Guardian—”

“Theron is sufficient,” he said quietly.

The room fell silent for half a heartbeat.

Then the operative nodded once. “Understood.”

Something subtle shifted afterward, and Matt felt it move through the room.

The title had carried distance with it. Mystery. Fear. Legend. But hearing Theron correct it himself changed something important. He stopped sounding like an artifact pulled out of some classified archive and started sounding like an actual person standing in front of them.

Baptiste seemed to recognize that too. His expression softened before he folded his arms across his chest. “Then the official records will reflect that.”

Theron inclined his head once in acknowledgment.

Vale finally set her tablet down on the table beside her. “Operationally speaking, we still have the issue of integration.”

Matt grimaced. “Integration sounds aggressively corporate.”

“Operationally,” Vale said, “we have a three-thousand-year-old wolf with no legal identity.”

Theron considered that. “That does sound inconvenient.”

Matt lost the fight against laughter. To his surprise, several other wolves did too.

Even Vale looked briefly irritated by her own amusement.

The tension inside the room eased after that. Not completely, but enough that people finally stopped staring at Theron like they expected him to vanish back into myth at any second.

***

Matt waited until the debrief finally dissolved into smaller conversations before making the call.

Operatives drifted out of the conference room carrying tablets, reports, and half-finished cups of coffee while medics continued arguing with two wolves who insisted concussions were “mostly subjective.” Vale remained near the monitors reviewing satellite scans with Baptiste, though neither of them tried to stop Matt when he pushed himself out of his chair with a grimace.

Theron noticed.

Concern brushed through the bond as Matt crossed the room toward the hallway outside. The older wolf followed a second later without a word.

The safehouse corridors had grown quieter since morning. Rain still moved softly against the windows overlooking the valley, though dawn had fully given way to gray mountain daylight now. Somewhere farther down the hall, someone laughed loudly enough to echo through the concrete walls before another voice shushed them.

Matt leaned one shoulder carefully against the wall outside the conference room and pulled his phone from his pocket.

Theron studied the device. “What is that?”