Page 39 of Claimed By The Tracker

"I did promise that," he said.

"So?"

"So I'm not in a hurry this time." His thumbs traced slow circles at my waist. "Last time I don't even remember taking your shirt off. I want to remember this one."

Something in my chest went soft and unguarded at that, a different ache than the one from the night before—less desperate, deeper somehow, the kind that came from being chosen slowly instead of claimed fast.

He undressed me like he meant every word of it. Unhurried. Attentive in a way that had nothing to do with urgency and everything to do with paying attention—the same care he brought to reading a room or a threat, turned instead toward the places he already knew would make my breath catch, the ones that made me go still, the ones that made me reach for him without meaning to. He'd learned all of it the night before in the dark, half out of his mind with wanting me. Tonight he had the luxury of using what he knew.

"Jace." His name came out as barely more than air when his mouth found the curve of my shoulder—not the mark-site, not yet, just skin he'd already mapped once and was in no hurry to leave.

"I've got you," he said against it. "We've got time."

We did, that night. Time to go slow. Time for him to savor what the other night hadn't let him keep—the wolf too loud, both of us too far gone—time for me to learn that the man underneath the tracker's discipline could be soft when he chose to be, deliberate instead of desperate.

When he finally moved inside me it wasn't the frantic collision of that night on the narrow bed. It was slower. Steadier. His forehead against mine, his eyes holding mine even as his control frayed, both of us choosing this pace on purpose instead of being swept into it.

"Stay," I said afterward, when he moved to pull back the blanket instead of pulling me closer. "Just—stay like this a while."

He stayed.

I fell asleep with his heartbeat under my ear and the bond humming low and warm between us, and understood, somewhere in the last waking moment before sleep took me, that whatever came for us tomorrow, I'd already gotten the thing I hadn't known I was waiting for: not just wanted, but chosen, unhurried, on purpose.

Chapter 12

What Gabriel Built

LENA

The registry block had hit the room an hour ago, and everyone had stopped pretending it was anything but what it was: the institution itself, turned against us like a weapon.

Gideon's composure had cracked for exactly one second when he delivered it, and that single second told me more than words could. Not a contractor working a proxy. Not bureaucratic friction. Someone inside the Veil Council's own machinery reaching down and closing a door specifically against us.

"Any further attempt through that channel will be monitored and blocked," Gideon said. "Seventy percent complete and frozen."

I felt Jace's attention sharpen at my shoulder—felt it through the bond like a blade coming to an edge. He didn't look at me. He looked at Gideon. "What do we have that they haven't locked?"

"Give me a minute." Gideon's fingers moved across his keyboard with the precision of a man who'd been outmaneuvered before and knew how to turn inside it.

Roan pulled the briefing together near midnight, drawing the others to the table with the weight of his presence. Cold coffee. Ward maps. Gideon's laptop glowing in the low light.

Tara spoke first. "The charter violation review process runs on a separate administrative channel. Different subgroup. Different infrastructure. The primary tier can't block it."

"Can you get in?" Roan asked.

"Yes. Different authentication. Longer processing window. But the access point exists."

"Then what's the complication?" Roan's jaw said he'd already guessed.

Tara turned to me. "The charter violation process requires the named subject to invoke it directly. In writing. In formal magical language. With a full power signature attached—not a blood drop. Sustained, controlled discharge channeled into the document for a minimum of forty seconds."

Forty seconds.

Twelve years of hiding this. Fifteen seconds had left me shaking. Forty seconds of controlled, directed output was endurance I hadn't built yet—precision held under pressure, for longer than my body had ever held anything.

Everyone was looking at me.

I felt Jace shift, the bond carrying something close to concern. Assessing. Deciding whether to speak or let me speak first.