Page 23 of Untamed

“My life is already organized around Wolfscorge, the Council, the Collective, and every guard who thinks they own us.” Arlo’s voice stays low. “This costs something. I’m not going to lie to you about that. But you don’t get to take what happened today and hand Graves the conclusion he’s been waiting for.”

I look down at my hands. They’re human again, broad and shaking, blood dried around two cuticles where the claws forced through. “If it happens again and I can’t stop?”

Arlo pushes away from the counter, putting the groceries away while he answers. “Then we leave. We come home. We figure out what made it worse, and we try again when you decide you want to.” The cupboard closes, ordinary sound returning to the kitchen. “Next time, look at me before you decide somebody touching me means I’m in danger.”

The bear is already too close under my skin for another answer. I let the shift take me in the kitchen, dropping my hands to the floor as they broaden beneath my weight. The shirt tears across one shoulder while fur pushes over my back, Arlo stepping clear as my body fills the room.

I cross into the living room and lie down with my back to him. The rest of the groceries disappear into cupboards while water runs at the sink, then the kettle starts heating. Arlo doesn’t fill the house with reassurance I’m not ready to hear, leaving me alone with the market until the noise in my head starts to thin.

By the time I get tired of being across the room, the windows have gone dark enough to reflect the lamp behind us. Arlo is on the couch with a book open over one thigh. I cross the rug, lowering my muzzle over his ankle until the weight of my head keeps his foot where it is.

He looks down at me, his hand staying on the page until I push my nose beneath his palm. His fingers settle behind my ear, working through the fur in the same path he’s used before. The pressure gives me something to follow while the market comes back in pieces: the crowd swallowing him, the stranger’s hand around his arm, the red blank stretch between seeing it and seeing anything else.

I send him that memory through the bond as clearly as I can, then hold onto the one thing I need him to understand. Next time, if someone he knows is going to get close enough to touch him, I need warning before the contact happens.

Arlo’s fingers stop for a beat behind my ear. “I can do that.”

Chapter Fourteen

Arlo

Orion wears the same charcoal cargo pants all the way to Kael’s house without once reaching for the waistband. After the market, I notice something else instead. Every time another person passes us on the path, his hands stay loose at his sides on purpose, fingers opening when they start to curl before he lets them hang again.

I asked before we left if he wanted to make the trip in bear form. Orion stood there staring at the pants for long enough that I thought he might say yes, then dragged them on and told me no. He chose human skin today even though he still looks uncomfortable in it, shoulders too tight under his shirt and every step just a little more deliberate than it should be.

Kael’s house is loud before I even touch the door. Alpha scent presses through the wood with fox, milk, coffee, and something scorched from the kitchen, while voices carry from somewhere deeper inside. Orion stops close behind me, his attention narrowing over the windows, the porch rail, the gaps between the curtains, then back to the door.

I turn enough to catch his eye. “Kael, Thane, Malik, Preston, and Slate are inside. I don’t know whether anybody else came over after Kael sent for us.”

Orion gives me one short nod without looking away from the house.

“I told them what happened at the market,” I add. “Nobody’s putting hands on me to see what you do.”

His mouth pulls tight as another set of footsteps crosses inside. “Good.”

I open the door and step in first. Thane is halfway down the hall, stopping as soon as he sees Orion behind me, and his eyes drop briefly to Orion’s hands before he shifts toward the wall to leave the middle of the hallway open.

“I heard about yesterday,” he says.

“Then you know why I’m asking for more room than usual.” I close the door without taking my eyes off him. “Don’t grab me from behind, don’t clap me on the shoulder, and don’t decide you need to test whether Orion can tolerate it. If you need my attention, use my name.”

Thane folds his arms, glancing once toward Orion before looking back at me. “Changing everyone’s behavior around him can’t be permanent.”

Orion goes rigid behind me, his scent sharpening enough that I catch it immediately. “He’s learning the difference. Yesterday he stopped before anybody got hurt, and I’m not recreating the same pressure inside a house full of Alphas just because you think faster means better.”

Thane looks directly at Orion. “I’m not trying to bait you.”

“I know.” Orion’s voice stays low, his hands still loose at his sides. “Still don’t touch him.”

Thane studies him another second, then gives one nod. “Fine.”

Kael comes out of the kitchen carrying a folder thick enough to bend in his hand. He looks from Thane to Orion to me, catching enough of the atmosphere without asking for the rest, then jerks his chin toward the strategy room. “Malik found something you both need to see.”

The board has changed since the last time we were here. Vulpis, Ursus, and Belbus still run across the top, but there are new dates beneath them now, along with three photocopied Council forms pinned beside the words post-bond stabilization window. Malik has his laptop open at the table, one hand resting beside the trackpad as he turns the screen toward us.

“I went back through everything we have after Graves threatened reassignment,” he says. “We’ve been looking at how quickly the Collective learned to trigger the feral shifts, but I think we were looking at the wrong part of the process.”

Orion takes the chair beside mine instead of settling on the floor. His knee touches mine under the table and stays there, the contact light but deliberate. “What part?”