She stops. Reads me. Whatever she finds in my face is not what she expected because her expression shifts. The pre-decision look is replaced by something more careful. “What?”
I breathe deeply.
I’ve been running this since last night. Since three in the morning when the bond-pull went hot in my chest. I sat on my bed thinking about partial bonds and pack dynamics and what it means that she walked into this valley and the territory rearranged itself around her before any of us had a plan about it.
“The pack,” I say.
“What about the pack?”
“They feel it too.” I hold her gaze. “What I feel—the pull, the recognition, whatever you want to call it—it’s not just mine. The partial bond touched the edges of all of them when you walked into the territory. Ryan, Tristan, Archer.” I pause. “They’re all feeling something. About you.”
She is very still. “I know that,” she replies carefully.
“I know you know. I’m not telling you something new. I’m telling you that I think you should give one of them a chance. At some special one-on-one time, you know?”
The stillness shifts into something else. “Excuse me?”
“Before this,” I say, gesturing between us. “Or insteadof, for tonight. One of the others.”
“You’re—” She stops. “You’re suggesting I go be with someone else?”
“I’m suggesting you don’t let the partial bond make me the default,” I say. “Because that’s what’ll happen if we keep going right now. You’ll end up in bed with me because the bond makes it easy and familiar, and you’ll never give the others a real—”
“Jack.” Her voice has an edge. “Are you genuinely, right now, telling me to go have sex with someone else?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“Why?”
“Because you deserve the whole thing,” I say, trying desperately to salvage the conversation. “Not just the part of it that happened by accident in the dark.” I hold her gaze. “Because I want you to give the pack some consideration. Not because the bond pointed you at me and it was convenient.”
She stares at me.
“That’s either the most selfless thing anyone has ever said to me,” she says slowly, “or the strangest rejection in recorded history.”
“It’s not a rejection,” I say. “It’s a rain check with very specific reasoning.”
“A rain check,” she repeats.
“A temporary and entirely strategic delay.”
She stares at me for an extended period. The reading look with a full inventory, nothing missed. “Who? Who do you want me to have sex with?” she asks finally.
“Archer,” I reply.
The look she gives me could strip paint. “Archer?”
“Archer,” I confirm.
“Archer, who grabbed my wrist on the river path.”
“Archer, who also couldn’t stop thinking about you afterward, which I know because I share a pack bond with him and subtlety is not his strongest—”
“Archer,” she says again, like she’s testing whether the word changes meaning with repetition. “You want me to go have sex with Archer.”
“I think it would be good for—”
“Jack.” She crosses her arms. “Seriously. Archer is going to give me a better time than you?”
