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“You shifted.”

“You were hurting.” I look at the blood on his hand. “I could feel that much.”

He turns his fist over as if he forgot what he did to it. “Through the bond?”

“Not exactly.” I cross the room when he straightens. “I knew it was you.”

For a moment neither of us says anything. His hands are shaking now that he isn’t forcing them still, and mine aren’t much better. I take his injured hand carefully, more because I need him to stop clenching it than because I know what else to do.

Arlo looks down at our hands. “I almost put him through the wall.”

“I know.”

“That isn’t me asking you to tell me it would’ve been justified.”

“I wasn’t going to.” I lift my eyes to his. “He threatened both of us. You were angry. So was I.”

His jaw works once. The fear that went cold during the visit finally leaks back through the bond, heavier now that Graves is gone and there’s nobody left to perform control for.

“They’re coming back,” I say. “What happens when they try to take me?”

Arlo looks at me for a long second before answering. “Then we make them work for every inch.” His voice is rough, but there’s nothing grand in it. “I’m not handing you over, and I’m not stupid enough to pretend I can stop the whole Collective by myself.”

He pulls his injured hand free long enough to press it against the edge of the desk. “We use Kael. We use the records. We use whatever the bond gives us and whatever leverage we can find before Graves comes back.”

I keep my eyes on him. “And if that isn’t enough?”

“Then we deal with what happens next when it happens.” His gaze doesn’t leave mine. “But you are not going back into containment because Graves says the word reassignment and expects me to fold.”

I wanted something cleaner than that. I wanted him to tell me Graves couldn’t touch me, that nobody could get through the door, that the bond made any of this impossible now. Arlo doesn’t give me a promise he can’t keep.

I step closer until my forehead rests against his. His hands settle around my upper arms, and mine stay at his waist while both of us stand there breathing through what Graves left in the room with us. The purr starts low in Arlo’s chest after a while, uneven at first, then steadier.

“Three days,” I say.

His grip tightens once. “Then we use all three.”

Chapter Twelve

Arlo

Coffee reaches me before I step into the kitchen, dark and bitter under Orion’s scent. He’s at the table in one of my black shirts with both hands wrapped around the blue mug he’s claimed as his, his curls loose around his face. The fact that he’s still human after yesterday stops me in the doorway longer than it should.

Graves left enough behind without touching anything. The house still feels watched, even with the curtains shut, and every time tires pass on the road my attention catches. Orion notices me standing there but doesn’t ask what I’m looking at; his thumb is rubbing over the finger I bit in containment.

The crescent is almost gone. Three days ago I could find the temporary bond without trying, a warm pull whenever his hand brushed mine, but now I have to reach for it. Something in my chest tightens at the sight of the fading mark before I can decide whether I’m relieved or sorry to see it disappear.

I pull out the chair across from him. “That mark won’t last much longer.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended, and Orion turns his hand palm-up, studying the pale edge of the crescent.

“I know. I can feel the bond thinning too.” His fingers close again around the mark. “It isn’t as loud as it was.”

There’s no clean way to talk about what I did in that cage, so I don’t try to make one. “I bit your finger because Graves wanted proof that I could establish something, and there were rifles pointed at you. I wasn’t putting my teeth in your neck while you were drugged and terrified just because he told me to.” The concrete, the blood on my arm, and the sound of safeties clicking come back with the words.

Orion’s jaw tightens while he listens. “You picked the smallest place you could reach.” His thumb presses once over the fading crescent before his hand settles against the table.

“Yeah. I thought it would be enough to get you out without giving them the bond they actually wanted.” I keep my eyes on him. “But I still bit you. I made that choice for you because I thought it was the least damaging one available, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”

The coffee maker clicks behind me. Orion’s left hand rises toward the old scar near his shoulder, stopping just short of it before dropping again. “The last Alpha didn’t stop to decide what would hurt less. He wanted the bond to take, so he held me down and bit where they told him to.”