Beth's gaze lands on me and immediately flinches away.
So, whatever I look like right now, it's clearly not inviting.
"You told her," Arthur says, slow, tasting each word, "that you're dating us. Pack Leroy."
"I heard it leave my mouth. And I knew—I knew—I should stop." Beth's face is going pink from the collarbones up. Her hands find her apron strings and twist. "But—"
"But you didn't stop," Knox says from the hallway entrance.
"... I didn't." Beth puts both hands on her face. "Luna was right there. She probably still hasn't blinked."
Arthur leans back against the counter. A sound comes out of him, halfway between a breath and a laugh. Then a bigger one.
"How'd she take it?" he asks.
Beth's hands drop away from her face, slowly, like she's peeling off a bandage she put on herself. Her cheeks are blotchy. Her chin is doing a defiant little jut that doesn't match the rest of her expression at all. "Her smile did this—" She does a smile wide and brittle. "And she saidthat's wonderful, oh my god, that's so great for you, I'm SO happy."
Something warm spreads through my chest. Not the bad kind now, though. It's more akin to the feeling you get when you've been locked out under the rain for hours and someone finally arrives to open the door.
Because I know that smile. Jessica wore it like armor, and Beth just put a dent in it. Four months of being the pack thatgot left, the pack the whole town side-eyes over drip coffee, and one panicked sentence from an omega in a green apron did what three alphas couldn't manage in a hundred and twenty days.
Something behind my ribs hums, small and fierce and deeply, unapologetically petty.
At the same moment, Arthur grins. "That fucking rules."
"It doesnotrule, Arthur," Knox says.
"It rules a little bit." Arthur looks at me. "Mase. Back me up."
I set the grip trainer on the counter. And then...
I smile.
"Yeah," I say. "That fucking rules."
Arthur and Knox both stare at me in surprise.
Beth's hands slide down from her face in slow motion, fingers trailing off her cheekbones like she forgot they were there. The blotchy pink is still going strong, but her eyes are wide now, locked on me, recalibrating.
"So you're... actually okay with this," she says.
"I'm not," Knox says.
"We've been playing defense for four months," I say, ignoring him. "Getting pitied at every event. Showing up and absorbing it. I'm done absorbing." I set my jaw. "Jessica got rattled. That matters. I say we stop retreating and push."
Knox unfolds his arms. "Can I have a word with you two?" He looks at Arthur, then at me. "Alone."
Beth's face is the face of a dog who's been toldsitand is now watching three people leave the room without saying whether there would be a treat at the end.
I give her the okay sign, the one divers use with their thumb and index finger, and follow Knox down the hallway to his room.
Arthur peels off behind us, pulling the hallway door half-shut.
Knox's room is exactly how I last saw it. Two monitors on the desk, cables sorted with velcro ties. A bookshelf organized in an alphabetical system with subcategories. A topographic mapof Lake Vienne on the wall—framed, not thumbtacked—and a diffuser on the nightstand pumping out enough eucalyptus to make the whole room smell like a spa.
He closes the door, leans against the desk and crosses his arms.
"So," I say, dropping onto the edge of his bed. "What's the objection?"
