Page 48

Preston's hand stops halfway down the pup's back. "He went into the den?"

"Yeah. I felt Orion through the bond and ran home. By the time I got there, he'd shifted and the Doctor had managed to corner himself in the worst possible room to piss off a bear. I got between them." Orion's skin stays hot under my thumb, but the bond pulls tighter at the memory anyway.

Malik looks at the dried blood under my shirt and wisely keeps the table between us. "That's from getting between them?"

"Four claws. Shoulder to ribs." Orion's fingers close around the edge of the table, and the bond throws the memory at me hard enough that I feel skin give all over again. His pheromones turn sour with it, thin and chemical on my tongue, so I push leather into the room and lift my shirt. "They're gone."

Silence hits for a second. There's only clean skin under the blood now, four pink tracks already fading where the deepest cuts had been, and Malik leans in just enough to look without reaching. "How long did that take?"

"Minutes. Orion licked them closed." Every face turns toward him and his shoulders pull up, my shirt tightening across his back, which is enough to piss off every Alpha instinct I own. Leather rolls heavier through the room before I bother stopping it. "When I removed the implant, my mouth closed the incision in his shoulder too. Yesterday we found out his works on me."

Orion drags one palm down the front of his trousers. "I tasted the blood and the heat started in my mouth. The skin pulled together while I was licking it." He sounds flat enough that someone who doesn't know him might buy bored. I get the bitter edge of his scent instead, the part that always shows up when people start talking about his body like he's across the room from it.

Malik takes the hint and turns to the board, writing REGENERATION beneath our names while the marker squeaks against the white surface. Neat black letters for me bleeding on the floor and Orion shaking so hard he could barely get his mouth to the wound. I hate the word on sight. "The implant was supposed to stop the blackouts," I say while he's still writing. "It stopped everything. Since I cut it out, he hasn't lost time once."

Malik glances back at Orion. "None?"

Orion rubs his thumb over the side of his palm, looking somewhere past the table while he searches the last few days. "No. I feel the bear coming now. Even when the shift is fast, I'm still there when it's over."

NO FURTHER BLACKOUTS goes under the first line. Kael stares at it with two fingers resting near the bite at his own neck while Thane's scent darkens by the window, and the whole room starts to feel wrong in that familiar way, like we're all watching pieces line up that were easier to live with when they looked random.

Kael's gaze stays on the board. "We thought my strength and what happened with Thane were pressure responses. Push hard enough and something useful shows up."

Malik writes MATCHED SET beneath our names, stops with the marker still against the board, then looks at the rest of us. "Maybe the useful part was never supposed to stay on one side of the bond. If the Feral line changes the Omega and the bond carries some of it into the Alpha, they weren't building isolated traits. They were building pairs."

Orion goes rigid beside me, pine buried all at once under that cold chemical edge the Doctor leaves on him. Slate catches it too. His fingers slide over the six pale removal scars at his neck, slow enough that I know he's somewhere else for a second before he comes back. "Mine took years. Six removals before the fox came through. Orion had one bond before this."

Orion turns his head. "One."

Slate's hand drops from his neck. "One. Whatever they learned from me, they got faster."

Malik lowers the marker and the color drains out of his face. "The fertility questions."

My hand tightens at Orion's neck. "What fertility questions?"

Milk and fox-sweet baby scent hang thick around the rug when Malik looks past us toward Preston and the pups. "Graves asked Slate. The Doctor asked about reproductive function before they pushed the line harder. We thought they were checking whether the designation stayed stable after transformation."

Slate's mouth goes flat. "They weren't checking whether we were healthy."

Preston's hand settles over his belly without him seeming to notice, and Malik's eyes catch there before moving to the kids scattered between the adults and the war table. "They wanted to know if it carries."

The bond tears open so hard I lose the room for half a second. Metal bars. A body too small behind them. A dart punching into a tiny flank while gloved hands reach through and something young scrambles backward because it doesn't know specimen or protocol or any of the words adults use to make hurting someone sound clean. Orion's palms slam into the table hard enough to rattle the marker tray, pheromones flooding the room until every pup goes silent.

"They do not get children from us." His voice barely rises, which makes it worse, the Omega in his scent sharp and furious enough that every Alpha in the room feels it. Mine comes up hardest because I'm already pressed against his side. "Not for this. Not ever."

I put my shoulder into his and keep my palm at his neck. "They won't." Leather pushes through the fear coming off him, not erasing it, just giving it something familiar to hit. His fingers stay white against the table for another breath, then loosen a little. Another breath. Better.

A fox pup noses at Slate's boot and he looks down, those old scars standing pale against his skin. "They called me an anomaly too," he says, letting the pup sniff his fingers when it nudges closer. "He's not an anomaly. He's a kid."

Apparently hearing his cue, the same little boy Orion held a few days ago abandons Preston and barrels across the rug. He crashes into Orion's leg, grabs a fistful of trouser fabric, and starts climbing with absolutely no concern for whether Orion agreed to any of this. One foot slips and Orion catches him before his knee hits the floor, a hand covering most of the kid's back while the other hooks under his thighs. "Up," the boy demands, arms already in the air.

The chemical bite in Orion's scent disappears so quickly it almost startles me. Warmer pine rolls back in while he lifts the kid against his chest, shifting him higher when the toddler leans sideways and leaving the fist tangled in his beard even after it pulls hard enough to make him wince. Then the kid drops his head onto Orion's shoulder like that's where he meant to be all along, and Orion's hand spreads over the narrow back without thinking about it.

For one stupid second I see a different kitchen. Orion barefoot, older, hair even more of a disaster, a sleeping kid hanging off one shoulder while morning light cuts across a counter. The image lands hard enough to make my hands go cold, and I leave the table before my face can give me away, making it as far as Kael's kitchen before I stop with both palms on the counter and stare at the drain like it personally offended me.

Orion's footsteps stop behind me. "Arlo?"

Kael's sink smells like coffee grounds and dish soap. I keep looking at it. "Room got small."