Page 39 of Curvy Arranged Mate

He got up. Pulled on a shirt, laced his boots, and left the quarters without making noise. The corridor was empty. Midnight patrols had passed twenty minutes ago. He could smell the pine through the side entrance, cold air pushing through the gaps in the stone.

He needed to talk to someone who wasn’t going to look at him with professional concern.

Damian was in the eastern barracks, which was where Damian tended to be when the rest of the compound slept, because Damian kept hours that defied any reasonable schedule. Chris found him on the bench outside the door, boots propped on the railing, a mug balanced on his knee.

“You look terrible,” Damian said in that easy way.

“Thanks.”

“I mean it. You look like you haven’t slept in three days.”

“Four.”

Damian moved his boots. Chris sat down beside him. The bench was cold. The sky was clear above the tree line, stars scattered thick, the mountains a black edge against the dark.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Chris said.

“Clearly.” Damian sipped from his mug. “Is this a general insomnia visit, or did you come out here to talk about Sloane?”

Chris stared at the tree line. A patrol wolf moved along the perimeter, dark fur catching the moonlight, gone.

“She was good today,” Chris said. “In the briefing.”

“She was better than good. She had Viktor recalculating in real time. I watched his face.”

“She knows Garrett’s patterns because she grew up inside them.”

“Yeah.” Damian’s voice softened. “The trauma must have shaped a lot of her.”

Chris picked at a splinter in the bench. The wood was old, weathered, the grain lifting. He pulled the splinter free, rolled it between his fingers.

“The bond,” he said.

Damian waited.

“It’s real.”

The silence after that held a weight Chris hadn’t expected. He’d been carrying the sentence around for days, turning it over, testing its edges. Saying it out loud didn’t make it lighter. It just made it true in a way he couldn’t take back.

Damian set his mug on the railing. “Okay.”

“That’s it? Okay?”

“What do you want me to say? I watched you in the briefing today. Every time she spoke, your whole body turned toward her. You weren’t tracking the conversation, Chris. You were tracking her. You were paying attention to her paying attention to the briefing.”

Chris leaned back against the wall. The stone was cold through his shirt. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

“With the bond?”

“With any of it. She tried to destroy Caitlynn. She ran a campaign; she poisoned the kitchen against her; she made my sister eat alone for weeks. I know what that cost Caitlynn. I remember how badly she wanted to escape. I remember my sister crying at all hours because the pack hated her.”

“I know.”

“So how am I supposed to reconcile that with the woman who sat in that room today and gave us the exact tactical blueprint we needed? How am I supposed to feel about someone who can take apart her own father’s attack strategy without blinking? Who sleeps twelve feet from me every night, who I can feel through this bond every time she’s scared?” He stopped. His voice had gotten louder than he’d intended. He pulled it back. “She’s scared all the time. Did you know that? Every night, this low-grade fear comes through the bond. It’s constant. She lives in it.”

Damian looked at him for a long time.

“You already know what to do with it,” Damian said. “You’re just hoping someone will tell you not to.”