Page 13 of Untamed

“I know.” I tuck the journal under my arm. “I’m telling you I don’t need it back.”

He studies me for another second, then reaches down and shifts one of the shirts deeper into the pile where it had started to slide loose. There’s something almost domestic about the movement, except he checks the door between motions and keeps his body angled so nobody could come up behind him.

“Do you sleep better in here?” I ask.

“Sometimes.” Orion straightens. “Sometimes I sleep better near you. It depends on whether the house feels quiet or wrong.”

“What makes it feel wrong?”

His expression closes for a moment, then eases when he looks past me toward the hall. “I don’t always know. A guard outside. A truck stopping too long. Something moving near the back wall. Sometimes nothing I can name.”

I nod because naming the problem for him would only be another way of pretending I understand more than I do. We leave the room together, and Orion takes his coffee back to the living room while I sit on the couch with the journal open across my knee.

He shifts again a few minutes later, not because anything happened but because the bear seems easier after breakfast. His shoulders roll forward as fur pushes over his skin, his hands broadening against the rug until paws take their place. When the change finishes, he settles beside the couch instead of across the doorway.

I read three pages before my hand drops over the cushion and my knuckles brush his shoulder. Orion’s head comes up at once. I pull my hand back, more reflex than fear, and his eyes follow it.

“Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

He keeps watching me, then moves closer until his shoulder presses lightly against the side of the couch. I leave my hand where he can see it. A few breaths pass before he tips that same shoulder under my palm.

The contact is rougher than it looks, coarse fur over dense muscle, warmth pushing up through my hand. I don’t stroke him. I let my palm rest there until his head lowers again and the tension in his back loosens beneath it.

Boots grind over gravel outside. Orion’s ears lift before I hear the guard pass the front window, and his body hardens under my hand. The growl stays inside his chest this time, low enough that I feel it more than hear it.

“He’s moving past the house.”

Orion’s eyes stay on the window.

“I can hear him too.” I keep my hand where it is instead of reaching for more of him. “He isn’t stopping.”

The footsteps fade. Orion’s breathing takes longer to settle than mine, but he never gets up, and when the guard disappears beyond the next row of houses his head comes back down over his paws.

The market bag is still hanging beside the door. I’d planned to go yesterday and didn’t, partly because Orion had spent most of the afternoon tracking every sound outside and partly because I didn’t want to find out what happened if I left while he was already wound tight. This morning feels different enough that I’m willing to try.

I close the journal and get my coat. Orion’s head rises before my hand reaches the zipper.

“I need coffee beans and bread. I’ll be gone ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”

He stands, the movement immediate, and for a second I think he’s coming with me. Then he looks toward the front window, back at me, and stays where he is.

“You want me to stay here.” It isn’t a question.

“I want you to know I’m coming back.” I hook the market bag over my wrist. “You don’t have to like me leaving.”

Orion’s ears angle back. The bond is still too weak to give me words, but irritation comes through clearly enough, tangled with something sharper that feels too much like fear. He takes one step toward me and stops.

“I know you’re coming back,” he says after shifting human just enough for the words to come, his voice carrying the strain the bear couldn’t hide. “That doesn’t mean I like the door closing behind you.”

I look at him standing half-dressed in the remnants of the shift, one hand braced against the wall while fur still recedes along his forearm. There’s no joke in either of us now, only the ugly simplicity of what he’s admitting.

“I’ll come through the same door.”

Orion holds my gaze, then steps back from the entryway. “Go before I decide I hate this idea more than I hate being left here.”

Chapter Nine

Orion