A beautiful refuge. A brilliant villain. A promise designed to trap.

Kendle lost everything to protect her students: her job, her home at the Warehouse, and the only place she's ever belonged. When Indira offers Kendle and her students sanctuary at the Borough, she takes it without a second thought.

It's the most luxurious place she's ever seen. Manicured grounds, fancy food, decadent bedrooms, and every comfort three frightened teenagers and their teacher could ever want.

She should have asked more questions.

Because the Borough isn't a home; it's a research facility, and Indira is studying what these kids can do. Every session goes a little deeper than the last. Every result gives her one more reason to push.

Outside the Borough, the world is turning on Wilds faster than ever. Inside, Kendle is watching their sanctuary become a cage.

Back at the Warehouse, Stephen is fighting a war of his own?holding together a school that's falling apart, protecting the students who are left, and trying to hold on to a relationship existing only in dreams.

Kendle came to the Borough to keep her students safe.

Now she has to get them out before Indira decides they're too valuable to let go.

Because some cages don't need locks?only the promise of safety. For readers who love the gifted heroes of the X-Men, fierce found family, morally gray villains, and lovers who can only meet in their dreams. Tropes: Protective Teacher · Found Family · Gifted Teenagers · Psychic Powers · False Sanctuary · Dangerous Experiments · Persecuted Gifted People · Trapped in Paradise · Long-Distance Romance · Morally Gray Choices · Dream Connection · Manipulative Female Villain · Institutional Control · Dystopian Society · Protecting Children Heat: Open Door Series: Wild & Bred Chronicles, Book 2 POV: First Person Setting: Parallel Universe • Colorado • Chicago Features: Telepathy • Psychokinesis • Genetic Engineering • Dangerous Experiments • Gifted Teenagers • Found Family • False Sanctuary • Established Romance