He glanced once down the corridor. Not at the cameras. Not only at Dominic. At the space around us, as if the building itself had a vote. “You’d be surprised.”
I didn’t move. “Excuse me?”
“I think everyone here would understand.” The words were mild. The implication wasn’t.
My mind went, unwillingly, to the glances in the hallways. Emmaline’s closed mouth. The elders looking from Dominic to me and away. The strange etiquette of space and silence I had been trying to understand with half a rulebook and no glossary.
“That isn’t an answer,” I said.
“No.” His voice stayed light. “It’s a warning.”
“About what?”
“About the fact that you’re applying human rules to a room that stopped using them the moment you walked into it.”
Behind me, Dominic’s silence had weight.
“And what rules should I be applying?”
Rhain’s eyes moved over my face, careful now. Past teasing, past performing. “Catalina,” he said. “What do you know about claims?”
The question landed, and every clever answer in my mouth died on impact.
I had spent half the night reading classified files on proximity behavior, visible dragon response, territorial posture, scent markers, and every sterile phrase the agency had ever invented to avoid saying a dragon wanted someone badly enough that other dragons noticed.
I had learned very little that was useful and far too much that was suggestive.
Unfortunately, my other source of information was worse.
A bookshelf worth of shifter romance I would deny under oath. Werewolves. Claiming bites. Scent matches. Heat. Mates who found each other across crowded rooms and immediately lost all interest in things like boundaries, employment, and good judgment.
Every lurid, useless page of it surfaced at once in the corridor. Standing between two actual shifters.
I looked at Dominic before I meant to. Instinct, which was always embarrassing when it arrived before strategy. He met my eyes from the end of the corridor, hands at his sides, expression unreadable, and somehow the entire space between us felt occupied by him.
Then I realized Rhain was close. Just shy of touching distance. Close enough that the cold-green scent of him threaded beneath his cologne. Close enough that if I lifted my hand, I could touch the front of his coat.
I had been so busy tracking Dominic that I had missed Rhain closing the distance.
Stupid. Distracted.
I took one step back. Rhain let me. He didn’t look away. “Not enough,” I said.
“Then look it up.”
“I have.”
“Notin the human files.”
Even the heating had stopped clicking.
“The library?” I asked.
“The older sections.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you’re pointing me toward accurate information out of generosity?”
His smile returned faintly. “Mm.”
