Page 36 of Untamed

The prod touches my ribs and my whole body jerks against the straps. The shock is not strong enough to injure me, only sharp enough to make every muscle seize at once, which is worse in a different way because the doctor can call it harmless. My nails begin to darken before I force the change back down. A tech reads my heart rate aloud while the doctor asks whether Arlo notices when I am aroused.

I do not answer. The prod touches my thigh this time, and my hips jerk hard enough that the table rattles. The doctor records pheromone output, recovery time, and whether the bond spikes when pain begins. Somewhere under all of it I can feel Arlo at home, irritated about something small and ordinary, and I clamp the bond down before any clean piece of this room can reach him.

“Again,” the doctor says. The next shock lands near the base of my neck, too close to the old removal scar. My teeth change before I can stop them, jaw aching around the shift while the restraints creak under my wrists. “Good. Hold him there. Ask the reproductive series while the response is elevated.”

The tech looks uncomfortable but obeys. “If the Council selected a mate for a reproductive trial, someone with a more traditional Alpha profile, would you cooperate for the sake of the species list?”

The question sends the shift ripping through my hands. Claws dig against the restraints until the leather creaks and one tech backs away from the table. “No. I’m bonded to Arlo. Put another Alpha near me for that and somebody dies.”

The doctor makes another note. “Possessive aggression remains high. Interesting.” He waits until my breathing starts to slow. “And if we told you refusal would mean Arlo’s immediate transfer?”

I go still. The doctor has stopped pretending this is data, and somehow that is worse because nobody in the room looks ashamed of it. I look at the restraint around my wrist, then at the screen where Arlo’s name is still waiting. Another shock would be easier than answering.

“You can do whatever you need,” I say. My throat closes around the words, but I force them out anyway. “Anything. Just leave Arlo alone. Don’t touch him. Don’t move him. Let him stay safe.”

“We’ll take it under advisement.” The doctor nods to the tech, who finally loosens the straps. “You’ve been very helpful today, Orion.”

I remember the walk home in pieces: gravel under my shoes, somebody opening a gate, my hand fumbling once against the front-door lock. Every step jars the places where the prod touched me, and the doctor’s questions repeat in the gaps between sounds: offspring, viability, alternate mate. I keep shoving all of it behind the narrowest part of the bond I can manage. If Arlo feels the restraints or hears the doctor ask about another Alpha, he will go looking for them.

Dinner is on the table when I get inside. Arlo is on the couch with a book open in his lap, watching me instead of reading, and I make it three steps past the food before my knees hit the rug in front of him. My body wants the familiar pressure of his hands and the rhythm that has brought me down before, but even reaching for it makes the straps flash across my wrists again. I tuck my hands against my stomach.

“Orion.” Arlo’s voice sharpens, but his hands stop before they reach me. “Look at me.”

I cannot. My eyes stay on his knee while I try to force air into my lungs. “I need quiet. I just need the quiet, Arlo. Please.”

Arlo’s boots shift against the floor, but he does not touch me. “You’re shaking. Tell me if I can put my hand on you.”

The question nearly gets the truth out of me. “Nothing happened. The shifts were bad today.” I make myself look up. “I just need to be quiet for a while.”

Arlo watches me long enough that I know he does not believe a word of it. Suspicion tightens through the bond while his face barely changes. He raises one hand slowly, giving me enough time to track every inch of the movement. His fingers move toward my cheek and I flinch away.

Arlo freezes with his hand still between us. His face loses color, and the hand drops slowly back to his own knee instead of finishing the reach. The fact that he does not try again hurts worse than if he had. For several seconds neither of us says anything.

“Who touched you?” His voice is barely louder than the purr he uses when he is trying not to scare me. He keeps both hands where I can see them now. “Orion, tell me who.”

I look at his hands, then at his face, and every part of me wants to give him the truth. The red stamp over his name comes back instead. “I’m just tired, Arlo. I want to sleep.”

I get to my feet before the bond can betray me and retreat to the den. The nest is dark enough to hide in, but it no longer feels sealed from the rest of Wolfscorge, not with chemical cleaner trapped in my nose and the memory of leather around my wrists. I drag the table farther across the doorway and curl into the shirts that smell most strongly like Arlo. The Collective found the one threat that can make me walk willingly back into their rooms, and now they know exactly how hard to pull.

Chapter Twenty

Arlo

The house is quiet in the wrong way. Orion has shut himself inside the den, and even from the couch I can smell stress underneath pine, earth, and the scent I have learned to recognize as his. Every Alpha instinct I have keeps pushing me toward the doorway. I stay where I am because the last thing he needs is another person deciding my fear gives me the right to cross his threshold.

Orion has been quiet before, but this is different. Dinner is untouched, the den door is blocked again, and every time I reach toward the bond he flattens whatever is coming back through it. I keep seeing him flinch from my hand. He has not done that in weeks, not even on the mornings when he wakes already half shifted and furious at being human.

I sit on the couch until the room goes fully dark and start arranging the last few days in the order they actually happened. After the first examination, Orion came home before dinner and dropped to the floor between my knees without taking off his coat. He pushed my hand into his hair and stayed there until the muscles in his back stopped jumping. When his sleeve rode up, I saw a red mark around one wrist; he pulled the fabric down before I could ask about it.

The next time, he showered before speaking to me. He came out smelling like my soap poured over industrial cleaner, and there was a bruise high on his thigh he said came from shifting badly. Earlier today he wore a shirt indoors for half the day even though he usually strips down the second fabric starts irritating him. Each thing was small enough to let pass on its own, but together they make me want to put my fist through the nearest wall.

The grounding worries me most because he has started reaching for it before he can look at me. He asks plainly, which is progress I would have been proud of a week ago, but lately he uses the rhythm like he is trying to drown something out. I have given him what he asked for because he needed it and because refusing would have punished him for asking. I am done pretending I do not see the pattern.

“Orion.” I keep my voice low and stay on the couch. “You don’t have to tell me everything. Tell me whether you’re hurt.”

A growl rolls out from the dark opening of the den. It carries hurt instead of threat, and my hands tighten against my knees. I wait until the sound fades before trying again.

“I’m not asking for a report.” I look toward the blocked doorway, where the edge of the blue rug has been dragged forward again. “I need to know whether somebody put their hands on you.”