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Chris laughed and turned his palms upward in a simple gesture. “I pulled a man off you twenty minutes ago.”

“That was instinct; you’d have done that for anyone. It’s who you are, I suppose. The knight in shining armor that I do not need. You don’t want this bond. So you have no reason to care.”

“I don’t. But me not wanting it doesn’t mean I am at peace with leaving you vulnerable.”

She closed her eyes. There it was. That word. Vulnerable. The bruises pulsed with her heartbeat, each throb a reminder of the pressure his fingers had applied with such precision. She could still smell the tobacco. It clung to the air inside the cottage, had settled into the bedding on the cot, into the walls.

“Who is he, Sloane?” His voice was soft now, and it seemed like he truly cared and that, more than anything, sent warm tears to her eyes. Tears that she blinked away furiously.

“His name doesn’t matter,” she said. Eyes still closed. “He’s gone. He won’t come back tonight.”

“You know that for sure?”

“I know how he operates.”

“How well do you know him?”

She opened her eyes. Chris was watching her with the same focused attention, his head tilted slightly, reading her the way she’d seen him read rooms. She felt exposed in a way that had nothing to do with the bruises or the broken door. He was looking at her without judgment, without pity, without the flinch she’d expected when he saw her giving up, letting a man choke her.

That absence hurt more than any reaction would have. She could have fought pity. She had no defense against patience.

“He’s banished,” she said. It cost her. She could feel the words pulling from a locked place inside her chest, a drawer she hadn’t opened for anyone. “From the pack. Years ago. He comes back sometimes. Leaves messages. Today he decided to show up.”

He made a move, she jumped, and he leaned back again. “You’re telling me… that an exile breached the wards?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s a security failure. Viktor needs to know.”

“Viktor can’t know.” Her voice sharpened, and she cringed at the desperation evident in it. “No one can know. You dragged me into this bond, fine, I can’t change that. But you don’t get to share my secrets because the magic says we’re mates.”

Chris absorbed that. His hands stayed on his knees.

“I didn’t drag you into anything,” he said. “The magic drew our names. I was in the hall when it happened. Caitlynn said my name, then yours. I didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it, didn’t plan it.”

The mention of Caitlynn’s name went through her like voltage. She kept her face still. “Your sister.”

“My sister.”

“Who I tried to run out of this pack.”

“Yes.”

“And now the magic has handed me to her brother.” She laughed, but it came out airless, too thin to carry any humor. “If I believed in punishment, I’d say this qualifies.”

“Is that what you think this is?”

She looked at him. Let him see what she thought, because the armor she usually wore was full of cracks tonight, too damaged to hold the full performance. “I think you walked in here to tell me the pairing was a mistake. I think you came to reject it. I think you looked at me sitting on this cot with a man’s hand on my throat, and now you feel responsible instead. Which is worse because responsibility means you’ll stay, and staying means you’ll watch me, and watching me means you’ll see things I’ve spent my entire life making sure nobody sees.”

The silence after that went long. Chris’s hands pressed harder against his knees. She could see the tendons flex beneath his skin, the small tell of a man holding himself still on purpose.

“You’re right,” he said. “I came here to tell you it was a mistake.”

She nodded. Expected.

“I still think it might be.”

Expected again.