Page 19
The guard freezes. His fingers move away from the holster, but his fear only gets stronger.
Graves looks past Arlo at me. “This placement is conditional. If Orion can’t demonstrate functional compliance, he can be moved back into containment before dinner.”
Steel under my paws. Fluorescent light that never goes dark. Darts punching through fur because nobody wants to come close unless I’m already unconscious. The room disappears for one hard breath, then comes back with my claws sunk deep enough into the floorboards to leave marks.
Arlo moves farther into Graves’s line of sight. “He sleeps. He eats. He shifts because he chooses to, and he communicates just fine when someone bothers treating him like a person. If you want to call that failure because he won’t perform on command, that’s your problem.”
Graves looks down at the gouges beneath my paws. “He disemboweled a guard.”
“The guard grabbed me while Orion was drugged, injured, and surrounded by rifles. You don’t get to erase the rest because the ugly version fits your report better.”
The anger in Arlo’s scent is heavier now, but he doesn’t push it through the room. I keep watching his shoulders instead of Graves. They’re tight, but steady, and there’s no fear in the bond yet.
Graves studies him for a long moment. “Perhaps the problem is the Alpha. The Collective has men with more experience and fewer sentimental objections. Men who understand that consent becomes secondary when a subject is medically dangerous.”
The growl leaves me low and ugly. A different Alpha means different hands, different teeth, another stranger deciding how much of me is allowed to belong to myself.
Graves glances toward me. “Protective aggression. Interesting. Is he guarding you, or is he territorial?”
“Back up.” Arlo doesn’t raise his voice.
Graves stays exactly where he is. “We have enough sedative in the car to put him under if this becomes difficult.”
Arlo’s pheromones hit the room hard enough that one guard steps backward and the other goes pale. The pressure catches me too, but it isn’t aimed at me. His body has gone still in front of Graves, every bit of him focused on the man who just threatened to put me back under.
“Don’t threaten him in my house.”
“You’re in no position to dictate terms.” Graves’s eyes settle on Arlo instead of me. “Your murder conviction can be reviewed.”
The bond goes cold. Not empty, not gone, but suddenly locked down so hard I feel the change before I understand it. Arlo doesn’t move, and Graves sees enough in his face to smile.
“We’ll return in three days. By then I expect Orion in human form, capable of following verbal direction, and documentation of the bond’s progression. If we don’t get it, reassignment papers will be prepared.”
“He isn’t being reassigned.”
“You have three days.”
Graves turns and leaves. The guards follow him out, and I listen until the Council car reverses over the gravel and the sound fades beyond the next row of houses. Arlo is still standing in the middle of the room with one hand curled at his side.
He doesn’t swear. He doesn’t look at me either. He walks into the office and shuts the door, and a second later something hits wood hard enough to rattle the wall.
I’m halfway down the hall before I stop. The bear would get me there faster, but I don’t need teeth for this. I let the shift move through me instead, fur receding along my arms while my paws narrow into hands against the floor, and by the time I reach the office I’m human and breathing hard.
“Arlo?”
Nothing comes back. I put my hand on the knob and wait a beat, listening to the rough pull of his breathing on the other side.
“I’m coming in.”
His answer comes after a pause. “Yeah.”
Arlo is bent over the desk with both palms planted against it. One of his knuckles is split, and a dark smear marks the cabinet beside him. He keeps his head down when I close the door behind me.
“Give me a second.”
I stay near the door. “Take one.”
His shoulders rise on a rough breath and drop again. When he finally looks over, his eyes move once over my bare human body before returning to my face, and some of the strain in the bond shifts without easing.
