Page 26 of Claimed By The Tracker

By afternoon, Roan had pulled us back around the kitchen table for the protection-protocol conversation he'd promised before we left for Asheville.

He'd been with us through the filing, but somehow he still carried the kind of authority that reorganized a room's geometry the moment he focused it.

Broad shoulders.

Brilliant blue eyes.

Unshakeable calm.

He looked at me with the same unhurried focus he gave everything—like he was waiting to see the rest of the picture before he decided anything.

"You threw my best tracker two feet against a car," he said.

I kept my chin level.

"He was in my way."

A beat.

Roan looked at Jace—a brief exchange that said volumes in the shorthand of two people with a long operational history.

His blue eyes read Jace's response, the way Jace's jaw had tightened, the way his stance had shifted into something more alert.

Then back at me.

"We need to talk about protection protocol."

"We need to talk about the fact that your agency accepted a contract that reads as supernatural coercion."

The silence that followed had weight.

Maddox went still near the eastern door.

Tara's pen stopped.

Gideon, at his laptop at the far end of the table, did not look up, but his fingers stopped moving.

Roan said, "Yes. We do."

It was not the response I'd expected from the field commander of a supernatural enforcement organization.

I let it mean something, let it register as real rather than tactical, and adjusted my read on him accordingly.

The protection-protocol conversation was honest and uncomfortable in the way that honest conversations about limited options always are.

Roan laid out what the agency could and couldn't do with the directness I was beginning to recognize as his particular form of respect—the counter-filing was the primary weapon, physical protection the secondary measure, and the agency couldn't challenge the Veil Council as an institution.

What they could do was build an airtight case for the charter violation and move faster than Voss's timeline.

Tara confirmed the ward integration.

"Lena's signature is anchored to the base layer as of this morning. The farmhouse responds to her discharge directly."

Roan took it in slowly, like he was revising something he'd already half-decided about me.

I noticed the recalculation and decided I didn't mind it—being seen as capable was a significant improvement over being seen as a problem.

Maddox produced food at the natural pause between ward discussion and counter-filing timeline, setting plates down where people were sitting with the quiet authority of a man who had decided meals were non-negotiable regardless of crisis level.