"You want me to make Blake easier for Dorian."
"I want you to help your mate see that Dorian's not the enemy here."
My hand closes around the edge of the desk. "Don't tell me what my mate needs to see."
Victor's tone hardens by a degree. "Then let me tell you what everyone else sees. They see a brilliant but volatile Delta interrupting discussions, an Omega whose history makes every communications question impossible, and an Alpha who appears increasingly unwilling to moderate the emotional temperature of his own side of the table. That perception will matter, Luther. Whether you like it or not."
My scent spikes before I can stop it.
The sharpness moves through the office, cedar turned bitter, smoke edged with something too close to warning. I feel it leave me. I know the exact moment it slips under the door because Luca's voice stops in the living room.
Victor's still speaking. "You're the one they'll listen to. If you can't bring your own people back to the table in good faith, then perhaps we need to reconsider whether Keller's prepared for the scale of this partnership."
I hang up.
For a moment, the phone remains in my hand, the screen already dark. Victor's voice is gone, but the shape of what he wants stays behind. He wants me to translate violation into process. He wants Blake quiet enough to be useful. He wants Luca's pain turned into language polite enough to circulate. He wants the children's fear treated as unfortunate atmosphere. He wants me to reach inside my own family and rearrange them for his comfort.
From the living room, Rosalie whimpers.
The sound's small, confused, still half inside sleep. It cuts through the last of my anger so cleanly that I'm standing before I know I've moved. I open the office door and stop at the threshold.
Luca's on the couch with Rosalie curled against him, the book closed in his lap. Her cheeks are flushed from her nap, one hand fisted in his shirt, her face tucked against his ribs. Luca looks up at me quickly. He's not afraid in the way he might've been years ago, not shrinking, not trying to make himself small, but his body's already responded to the sharpness in mine. His shoulders are tense. His eyes search my face before his mind can soften what instinct's told him.
Rosalie makes another broken sound and buries herself deeper into Luca's side.
The anger drains so fast it leaves shame in its place.
"I'm sorry," I say, too roughly at first. Rosalie flinches, and I force my voice lower. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."
Luca's hand moves over her back. "Lu, it's okay. She was half asleep."
It's not okay. He says it because he loves me, because he understands Victor's spent days pressing on every bruise he can find, because Luca knows better than almost anyone what it means for the body to answer before the mind's ready. But my scent woke my daughter. My anger reached a room where she was safe and told her something was wrong.
I step back before Luca can forgive me too quickly.
The hall's cooler than the living room. I turn toward the library because it's the nearest place with a door, and I make it three steps before Grayson catches up to me. His hand closes around my forearm, firm enough to stop me without making the hold into restraint. For a moment neither of us moves. The house is quiet behind him except for Luca's low murmur to Rosalie, soothing her back down.
"Luther," Grayson says, and the gentleness in his voice makes the shame worse.
"I need a minute."
"Take it with me."
He steps in front of me before I can answer. His hair's loose around his face, his eyes tired from too many days spent keeping everyone's edges from cutting too deep. He should be with Luca and Rosalie. He should be making sure Blake hasn't turned rest into another kind of work. He shouldn't have to stand in the hall with me because Victor Hale knows how to make a phone call feel like a hand around the throat.
"I woke her," I say.
Grayson's expression shifts, but he doesn't rush to comfort me out of the truth. "Your scent got sharp. She woke because the room changed suddenly."
"Because of me."
"Yes," he says, and the honesty steadies me more than denial would have. "Because of you. And then you stopped, stepped back, and apologized before fear could become the whole room."
I look away because the distinction's too generous and still not wrong. Grayson reaches for my face, both hands warm against my jaw, and guides me back to him. When he presses his forehead to mine, I close my eyes.
"Anger isn't the same as danger," he says quietly.
My hands find his waist. I don't remember choosing to hold him, only that my fingers are there, curled in the soft fabric of his shirt. "It felt the same to her."
