Page 66 of Guarded By The Alpha

I saw his hand move before I understood what he was doing—a burst transmission, sent before Gideon could kill the outbound signal. Encrypted. Aimed. Carrying everything he'd pulled in three weeks of mapping us.

Our internal files. The way we ran.

And one more thing he'd gotten off the transport before he ran.

"Blocked it at seventy-three percent," Gideon said over the comm, tight with frustration. "I've got the package. I know what's in it."

A pause that carried weight.

"I'm going to Nova."

My chest went cold in a way that had nothing to do with the night air.

Jace took the handoff. I gave him the restraints, the sweep order, everything a commander is supposed to give when the fight ends and the threat's secured.

Then I went to find her.

Nova was standing at the screens when I came through the door.

Not sitting. Standing. The way she stood when she was holding something that cost her. She had a printed page in one hand—Gideon must have pulled the transmission and handed her the hard copy, because she always worked better when she could hold a thing—and the expression she wore when something had gotten genuinely under her skin.

Too still. Too controlled. Not meeting my eyes.

The room had the specific quality of the three minutes before a storm breaks.

She read me the part that mattered.

I went very still.

"'Recommend keeping the bloodline matter contained. Subject shows signs of dormant inheritance waking. Suggest restricting this to senior staff to keep the Council from learning of it.'" Her voice was flat. Precise. Not cold because she was angry but because she was working very hard to hold something that wanted to become something else. "'Field commander's note: the complication needs to be managed carefully.'"

"That's from day two," I said.

"I know when it's from."

"I meant contained as in kept inside the agency. Keeping the Council from finding out about your blood, not⁠—"

"I understand what you meant." Her voice was careful. "But I also understand what it looked like, back before I was anything to you but a complication."

I should have stopped there. I knew I should have stopped there.

The thing that had always been both my spine and my blind spot was that I couldn't say anything less than the truth when the truth was what she'd asked for.

"On day two, I didn't know what you were going to be."

The silence after it had the quality of a thing that couldn't be unsaid.

She looked at me with the expression of someone who'd just had something confirmed that they hadn't wanted confirmed—not the worst version of the thing she feared, but a real one, and that was its own kind of blow.

She set the page down on the console. Her voice stayed steady and it cost her to keep it that way—I could feel it in the bond, the controlled quality of someone carrying weight.

"I thought what was between us was built on you seeing me," she said. "I actually believed that from the start you were treating me like a person and not a problem to handle."

I didn't defend myself. There was no defense that didn't make it worse—she wasn't wrong about what the page looked like, and I wouldn't insult her by arguing a point she wasn't making.

She said she needed the night.

She picked up her camera bag and walked to the east corridor—her old room, the one Maddox set up the first night, the one she'd moved out of when whatever was between us became more than a place to keep her safe. She closed the door with the quiet finality of a woman who knew exactly how much force a door needed to mean what it meant.