“Jack,” I say.
“Yes?”
“You’re in a pack?”
A beat. The hesitation of someone who understands exactly what that sentence means to theperson saying it. “Yes,” he replies.
I breathe in through my nose.
FourAlphas. A pack I didn’t know existed. A partial bond I didn’t agree to that connects me not just to him but—at the edges, faintly, in a way I’m only now understanding—to all of them. To this territory. To these people.
To this café where I walked in for coffee and eggs and somehow walked into the rest of my life without being consulted.
“We’ll talk,” I say. Not a question.
“Yes,” he agrees. “Whenever you’re ready. However angry you need to be first.”
“Very angry.”
“I know. You’re entitled to it.”
At least that’s not deflection. That’s not the relaxed grin. That’s something more careful. Something that understands it caused harm and is not rushing the repair, and my anger, which has been running hot since one in the morning, goes one degree quieter despite itself.
“Later,” I say.
“I’ll be here,” he replies.
I breathe.
All right then.
Archer has redirected his attention to me again. He moves to the stool between me and Jack. He doesn’t take it, just stands at it, close enough that I have to make a conscious choice not to shift back, and I don’t, because I don’t move for territorial displays. He smells like cedarand snow and an uncategorizable essence below. My category system is apparently not prepared for any of the men in this room.
“You’re staying at Doris Harrow’s,” he says.
I observe him. “Did you ask her, or did you track me?”
“Small town,” he replies again, shrugging.
“Apparently.” I hold his gaze. “Are you going to tell me I shouldn’t be there?”
Something shifts in his expression. A recalibration. “No,” he says, after a moment.
“Good. Because the answer would have been interesting.”
Jack makes a delighted sound.
Tristan sets a plate in front of me—eggs, toast, exactly what I ordered, and a small pot of something that turns out to be very good raspberry jam—and rests his forearms on the counter in a way that brings him slightly closer. Not crowding. Just present in a way that is, inexplicably, easier to tolerate than it should be.
“Don’t mind Archer,” he says quietly. “He’s suspicious of everything until he’s not.”
“I don’t mind him. I just don’t perform for him like a good little girl.”
Tristan’s mouth curves. “No. I can see that.”
I eat.
And this is where things get complicated, because I came here angry. I am still angry, the anger hasn’t goneanywhere, it’s sitting in my chest next to the mark on my neck and the pull of the partial bond and the three hours of sleep. But the food is extraordinary and the man who made it has the personality of someone whose warmth costs nothing and asks for nothing in return.
