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Anger hits hard enough that my hands curl against my knees. I can almost feel another Alpha’s weight over him, teeth in skin that had never been offered, and the thought makes my own canines ache. I force my hands open before that anger becomes another thing Orion has to deal with.

“You don’t have to tell me anything else about him.” I keep my attention on Orion’s face instead of the scar. “Not because I don’t want to know. I’m not going to make you open it up just to prove I’m different.”

His shoulders loosen a fraction. “I don’t want to talk about him.” He reaches for his coffee again, and I let the refusal stand without touching it.

When I pour my own mug, the mark on his finger catches my attention again. Graves will notice the second he sees it and call the temporary bond inadequate, unstable, incomplete, whatever gives him the cleanest path to demanding the permanent one. I wanted the bite temporary, but some part of me still hates watching my mark disappear.

“He’s going to push for your neck next.” I sit again with the mug between my hands. “The finger bite gave him what he wanted long enough to get you out of that cage. Now it’s fading, and he’ll use that against us.”

Orion’s fingers tighten around the blue mug. “If I tell you I don’t want a permanent bond, what happens?” His gaze stays on mine, steady even with the old scar visible above the collar of my shirt on him.

I lean back instead of crowding the table. “Then I don’t bite you. I’ll lie to Graves, stall him, drag Kael and Thane into every meeting, whatever buys us room. I don’t know how long any of that works, and I won’t pretend I do.”

The silence that follows has Graves all through it anyway. Orion stares into his coffee while steam curls past his face, and I hate that the bastard has managed to put his hands into this conversation without being anywhere near the house.

“I know what a permanent mark means,” Orion says after a while. “I know what it feels like when everyone else decides the bond matters more than the person carrying it. I’m not doing that again.”

“Neither am I.” There’s nothing useful in adding another promise. What matters is whether I keep it when Graves comes back.

Orion’s thumb finds the fading crescent again. “This one felt different. Even when I hated that you did it, I could tell the difference.” He says it without looking up, and the words settle somewhere under my ribs.

I wanted as little of myself in him as I could manage while he was drugged and trapped. Hearing that the bite still felt different leaves me with an ache I don’t have a name for, so I drink coffee that’s already gone lukewarm instead of trying to turn it into something Orion didn’t ask for.

The refrigerator gives me an excuse to move. Half a carton of eggs, butter, and one package of meat aren’t getting either of us through another day, and the bread bag has two slices left. Orion watches me set them on the counter while I start the pan.

“We need food, and you need clothes that actually fit.” I crack the eggs into the heat and glance at the shirt stretched across his shoulders. The seams pull every time he reaches for his mug.

Orion looks down at himself. “The shirt is fine. The pants are worse.” His attention shifts toward the dark sweatpants folded over the chair, and his fingers flex once against the mug.

I’d assumed the waistband bothered him because it reminded him of restraints. Orion rubs his palm over his thigh before explaining, “After I shift, everything against my skin feels wrong for a while. The waistband is worse because it stays in one place, but the rest of the fabric isn’t much better.”

That explains the clothes abandoned on the floor after a shift and the way irritation builds the longer he stays dressed. I’d been tying every discomfort back to what was done to him when some of it belongs to the body the Collective changed.

“We can find something softer.” I slide the eggs onto two plates. “I have to go to the market anyway.”

His attention goes straight to the front window. Through the gap in the curtain, residents move between houses while two guards trade places near the corner. Orion’s shoulders don’t rise, but the muscles along his arms tighten.

I put a plate in front of him and eat without turning the market into another conversation he has to survive. Graves wants proof Orion can function outside the house; I’m not giving that bastard a place at our breakfast table too. If Orion stays here, I’ll go alone, and if he comes with me, we leave when he’s had enough.

By the time the plates are empty, Orion has the sweatpants in his hands. He steps into them slowly, pausing when the waistband settles against his skin, then adjusts the fabric until he can stand without tugging at it again. The discomfort hasn’t gone anywhere, but neither has whatever decision brought him to his feet.

I reach for my coat, Orion beside the doorway when I turn, his hair still loose around his shoulders and his jaw set. His hand rests briefly over the fading bite before dropping to his side. “I want to go with you. I don’t want Graves deciding the only reason I can leave this house is because you made me.”

Chapter Thirteen

Orion

The second I step onto the gravel, I want the door at my back again. Outside has too much room in it, every sound reaching me from a different direction: a laundry cart rattling near the end of the row, two guards talking under the nearest tower, somebody farther down carrying onions sharp enough to sting my nose. Arlo locks the house behind us, then falls into step beside me without moving ahead.

Human skin has felt wrong since I woke. His old shirt hangs loose enough across my chest, but the collar rubs every time I turn my head, the cargo pants dragging behind my knees with each step. I leave them on. Graves wants a human presentation badly enough to threaten reassignment, and if I’m going to wear clothes for anyone today, it’ll be because I chose to walk out of that house in them.

Arlo glances over as we clear the first guard post. “If it gets to be too much, we leave. I need groceries, not a performance for Graves.” His voice stays low enough that I don’t have to pull it out of the noise around us.

I nod, keeping my attention on the road. He warns me about a cart coming up behind us before its wheels get close, then points out two Betas cutting across from the mess hall. Everything I can already see, he leaves alone. The quiet between those warnings gives me something to hold onto without making me feel watched from inside my own head.

The market fills the widest stretch of road in the residential sector. Patched awnings sag over folding tables, people packed close beneath them while wet wool, frying meat, coffee, soap, Alpha musk, Omega sweetness, and damp earth press together until none of it wants to stay separate. I find Arlo’s leather and woodsmoke beneath the rest and keep it there.

The bread vendor starts complaining before Arlo finishes asking for two loaves. Half the last flour shipment arrived damp, one of the ovens is running too hot, and supply has apparently decided nobody deserves decent bread anymore. Arlo checks what she hands him, pays, then shifts the wrapped loaf under his left arm.