“I’ve been doing my job.”
Now she turns. In the low light from the carnival’s spillover, her face is all contrast, dark eyes, sharp lines, the contained energy of someone who is very still because they’re choosing to be, not because they’re calm.
“Your job,” she repeats.
“Pack security. You’re inside the perimeter. That’s how it works.”
She tilts her head. “Perimeter security for a carnival?”
“For the town.” I hold her gaze. “And everyone in it.”
“I’m not in your town. I’m passing through.”
“Then why are you still here?”
The pause that follows is a second too long. She covers it—she’s good at covering—but I caught it. “Work,” she says. “Plus this pesky partial bond.”
“You told Tristan you needed cash. You’re working his stall. That’s not a reason to be at opening night drinking cider with the pack.”
Something in her expression sharpens. “The pack.”
“Our pack.” I take a step forward. I’m not threatening her, I’m establishing distance. There’s a difference, andshe’s smart enough to know it, which means she’ll notice it’s not aggression I’m running right now, it’s proximity, and I need to be close enough to see her face clearly.
She doesn’t step back. Of course she doesn’t step back.
“So this is the part of the conversation where you tell me I’m a problem,” she says. “Are we doing this right now?”
“I’m asking you a direct question. What are you doing here?”
“I answered—”
“You deflected. That’s not the same thing and you know it.” I hold her gaze. “You’re running from something. You’re in distress. You’re running a very good imitation of someone who’s not, but the scent doesn’t lie and I’ve been in perimeter security long enough to know what distress in motion looks like. Whatever you’re carrying, it followed you here, and I’d like to know what it is before it becomes a problem for people I care about.”
The silence is different this time. She’s looking at me with those dark eyes, and what’s in them isn’t the dismissal she deploys on Jack or the careful reading she does on Tristan or the held-gaze thing she does with Ryan that I have noticed.
What’s in her eyes right now is real. Unguarded for just a moment. The look of someone who’s been seen accurately and doesn’t know whether to be relieved orfurious about it. This conversation could go either way.
“That’s not your business,” she says, and her voice is very level.
“It becomes my business when you’re inside—”
“Your perimeter, yes, you said.” Her chin goes up. “Here’s the thing about that, Archer. I didn’t agree to be inside your perimeter. I didn’t agree to be anyone’s anything. I came to a town, I had one-night stand, I took a job, I’m attending a public carnival. None of that is a security event.”
“You’re an Omega in distress inside a pack’s home territory. You hold a partial bond with one of those pack members,” I say. “That’s—”
“Don’t.” Her voice drops a register, becomes dangerous, and for the first time tonight I see the fury underneath the control. It’s not breaking through, not spilling over, just becoming visible. “Don’t make this about what I am. I’m not a category. I’m not a situation you need to manage. I’m not inferior to you just because I’m an Omega.”
“I’m not managing you—”
“You’ve been following me all night.”
“I follow everyone at the perimeter—”
“You follow me differently,” she says, and that cuts hard.
I go still.
She’s not wrong. I know she’s not wrong. I follow the perimeter because it’s what I do, but I don’t follow everyone the way I’ve been following her, with theattention of something that has locked onto a frequency and can’t unset itself.
