“The pack,” she says. “Tell me what it means. The partial bond and the pack.”
I remember to breathe. “It means the pull isn’t just toward me. It’s toward all of us, technically. You would have felt it when you walked into the café. The pressure of it.”
“The air.” She nods. “I thought it was… I’ve been feeling it since I drove into town. I thought it was the territory generally.”
“It is the territory generally. The pack bond is woven into the place. We’ve been here long enough.” I pause. “The partial bond adds a frequency on top of that. A direction.”
She’s quiet for a moment. I thought she was beautiful last night in the smoky lights of The River. Out here, with the sun catching the highlights in her hair, she is stunningly gorgeous. If I have to be tethered to someone, I’m glad it’s her.
“Can it be undone?” she asks.
The question lands the way I knew it would. I’ve been running it since two in the morning, the same calculation, and I’ve been honest with myself about what I want the answer to be and what the answer actually is, and those are not the same thing.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “Partial bonds are rare. There’s not a lot of precedent for undoing them. Most of the time they either complete or they fade if the parties separate for long and far enough. But that could take decades.” I hold her gaze. “I’ll look into it. Properly. I’ll contact people who know more than I do.”
She scowls at me.
“I mean it,” I continue. “If you want it undone, I will find out how to undo it. I’m not saying it to make you feel better. I’m saying it because you didn’t choose this and you deserve every option to undo it.”
The silence between us is different from the silence atthe counter. Less charged. More honest.
“Find out,” she says.
“I will.”
“Fast.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I won’t be in town long.”
I hold that. Not arguing with it. Not faking acceptance of it. Just holding it, the way you hold something that has weight and requires your full acknowledgment.
“How long do I have?” I ask.
“I don’t know. But I need to move on.” She looks at the cobblestones. “I have things following me that I don’t want landing here.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious, Jack. Look into it.”
“I know you’re serious.” I pause. “I’ll have something for you as quickly as I can. It’s my highest priority.”
She nods. Once. The nod of someone who has accepted the terms and will hold you to them. “Last night,” she says, after a moment. “Before.”
“Yes?”
“That was…” She stops.
“What was it?” I prompt when it appears she’s not continuing.
“I’m not saying it was a mistake,” she says carefully. “I’m saying it became complicated.”
“The timing was—” I stop, redirect. “I’m sorry. Not for the night. For the morning. For nothaving better control than I apparently should have.”
She looks at me for a long moment. “You have terrible instinct management.”
“An established fact,” I agree.
A slight smile touches her lips. Not a smile—not yet, not quite—but the precursor to one, the thing that happens before a smile in people who don’t give them easily. “As soon as you can,” she says. “Tell me when you have something.”
“I promise.”
