My anger doesn’t disappear.
But it gets quieter.
Because these are not the men I’d have expected when they walked in the door. The closing-in of Alphas who have decided something and aren’t asking for permission.
Tristan is a man who made my coffee strong because I looked tired. Archer, who is suspicious of me, and is currently losing the argument with himself about whether the suspicion is warranted. And in the corner, not speaking, the blond one who has been watching me since he walked in and whose attention is the most direct thing in the room.
And Jack. Well, I already know about him.
Archer has sat down. Not close, but he’s sitting, which is a de-escalation of sorts. He’s ordered coffee from Tristan and he’s holding it with both hands. He’s looking at me sideways with an expression I can’t entirely read but which has less hostility in it than five minutes ago.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is called progress.
“What are you here for?” he asks. Less demanding this time. Almost actually a question.
“Carnival week, apparently.” I take a piece of toast. “Elsie at the gas station gave me an enthusiastic briefing.”
“Of course she did,” Jack says. “Elsie briefs everyone.She considers it a public service.”
“She’s not wrong.”
“She is absolutely not wrong.” He steals a corner of my toast. I let this happen because I’m choosing my battles this morning. “What do you think of the setup so far?”
“Impressive for a town this size.”
“We’ve had sixty years of practice.” He sayswewith genuine ownership, and I file that away. He’s from here, they’re probably all from here, this is their town in a way that goes beyond address. “You should see it when it’s fully running. Tristan’s stall alone is worth the trip.”
“It’s just the café, but expanded,” Tristan says, with a modesty that his food far exceeds.
“It is notjustanything,” Jack says firmly. “The man made a fried cinnamon thing last year that caused three people to cry. Happy tears. He could give a woman an orgasm just with his strawberry tarts.”
“They must be quite the tarts,” I reply.
I eat my eggs and I listen. I feel the pack around me, not pressing, not claiming, just present. In the way of people who have been in rooms together long enough that they fit without effort. And at the edge of it, faint and new and entirely without my permission, the partial bond sits like a thread I’m pretending isn’t attached to me.
Except, it is attached to me.
I know it’s attached to me.
Jack is at the end of the counter and the thread runs in his direction. I am in a café in a small town with a pack I didn’t know existed and a bond I didn’t agree to and four men who are, against my considerable resistance, not what I expected.
The blond one is in the corner.
I’ve been tracking him the whole time.
I know where he is the way you know where a fire is in a room, not looking directly at it, but always aware of the heat. He has coffee and he hasn’t touched it. He’s looking at something on the table in front of him, or pretending to, and he’s been absolutely still for the entire conversation. His stillness is… different from stillness. It’sattention.Complete, undivided, directed.
At me.
I turn my head and look at him directly, because I don’t do the thing where I pretend I haven’t noticed. He looks up at the same moment, like he knew the redirect was coming. He is… I’m not doing this. He’s a stranger in a town I’m passing through and I’m not cataloguing his face.
Except his expression does something, in the moment we’re looking at each other, that I didn’t expect. Nothing soft. Nothing that could be called obvious. Just the faintest shift, at the corners of his eyes, like something in him acknowledges this thing happening between us and has decided to be honest about it, even if only for a second.
I look away. I finish my eggs.
I think:partial bond, pack I didn’t know about, four men, one mark on my neck that I can still feel.
I think:of all the towns on all the highways in all the states.
