Chapter 2 — You Don’t Get to Claim Me

Rowan

“The bleeding,” Daniel Mercer said.

He stood in my father’s study with his wife beside him and a fury so controlled that it worried me more than shouting would have.

“She was trying to stop the bleeding.”

My father lowered the photograph of the agreement.

“Daniel—”

“Elliot was barely conscious. He couldn’t hold a cup. He certainly couldn’t sign a return undertaking.”

Grace’s hands were folded in her lap.

She had not stopped watching the door since they arrived.

Elliot sat in the adjoining room with Caleb. I could hear their voices through the wall, too low to make out.

I could also hear every time Elliot’s breathing changed.

The bond was a new sense with no useful instructions.

My wolf wanted him near.

I wanted answers.

Neither desire entitled me to anything.

“Voss remains in the university guest residence,” I said. “Two officers outside his room. He surrendered the document for examination.”

“He agreed to surrender a copy,” my father corrected.

“The sheet he presented.”

“Rowan.”

I looked at him.

Gideon Ashford was good at making silence feel like a reprimand.

Tonight, it wasn’t working.

“He grabbed Elliot,” I said. “We have the recording.”

“That will be considered separately.”

“It happened while he was trying to enforce this agreement.”

My father put the photograph down.

“Councilor Pike has called for preliminary review on Monday. Until then, no transfer will be authorized.”

“Put that in writing.”

Daniel looked at me.

My father did too.

After a moment, he reached for his pen.

Elliot was sitting on the edge of a sofa when I entered the next room.

My jacket swallowed his shoulders. One sleeve was folded back twice.

He had a glass of water on the table in front of him, untouched.

Caleb stood.

“I’ll get the car.”

“I can arrange transport,” I said.

“We have a car.”

“Right.”

His expression softened by approximately half an inch.

He squeezed Elliot’s shoulder and left.

I stayed near the doorway.

“Your parents are coming through in a minute. There’ll be no transfer before the review.”

“After the review?”

“We’re going to challenge the document.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”

He studied me.

Up close, his eyes were brown with small gold flecks near the pupil. I had noticed them at the library too.

I had spent two weeks pretending I hadn’t.

“I don’t know what the council will do,” I said. “But Silas won’t simply be allowed to take you tonight.”

Elliot picked at a loose thread on my cuff.

He realized what he was doing and stopped.

“I want to go home.”

“The address is known to Black Hollow now.”

His shoulders drew inward.

“The agreement had it printed beneath your signature,” I continued. “I’d like to station officers there, or offer another place until we know how they got the information.”

“Your house?”

“The east guest wing has—”

“No.”

“Then somewhere else.”

He blinked.

I waited.

“There’s an apartment above the old dispatch office,” I said. “Separate entrance. Kitchen. Your family can stay. It’s inside the patrol boundary.”

“Who has a key?”

“Facilities. Security.”

“You?”

“If you want me to.”

“No.”

“Then no.”

He looked down at the jacket.

My wolf objected to this conversation on several grounds.

I ignored him.

“Does the apartment have a second exit?” Elliot asked.

“A fire stair off the kitchen.”

“Windows that open?”

“Yes.”

“No bars?”

“No bars.”

He breathed out.

“All right. One night. Then we discuss it again.”

An hour later, I stood in the dispatch apartment’s kitchen while Caleb checked the fire stairs and Grace put food in the refrigerator.

Daniel was downstairs speaking to the officers.

Elliot examined the lock on the front door.

“It’s new,” I told him.

“How new?”

“Forty minutes.”

He turned.

I had the ridiculous satisfaction of seeing him almost smile.

“Efficient.”

“I occasionally manage it.”

“You had someone change the lock while we were driving here?”

“Yes.”

He held out his hand.

I placed both keys in his palm.

His fingers brushed mine.

The contact lasted less than a second.

It still made the room feel warmer.

Elliot closed his hand quickly.

I stepped back.

Grace looked between us, then discovered something urgently interesting in a grocery bag.

“I’m making tea,” she said. “Caleb, find the mugs.”

Elliot waited until they were at the other end of the kitchen.

“I need you to understand something.”

“Go ahead.”

“If you come here, you knock. You don’t walk in because you can smell me on the other side.”

“I knock.”

“And you don’t use your voice on me.”

I knew which voice he meant.

Alpha command was not persuasion. It reached past judgment and made the body obey before the mind could object.

“I won’t.”

“Even if you think you’re helping.”

“Even then.”

His throat moved.

“No marking.”

“Elliot.”

He stiffened at his name.

I softened my voice.

“I’m agreeing with you.”

He glanced at my mouth, then away.

“All right.”

“And,” he added, “when someone asks me a question, let me answer.”

“I should have let you speak in the study.”

“You did let me speak. You also told your father I was staying inside the patrol boundary before you asked me.”

He was right.

I rested my hands against the counter behind me.

“I’m sorry.”

That seemed to surprise him more than the keys.

“I’m used to giving instructions,” I said. “You can tell me when I get it wrong.”

“Will you listen?”

“I’m listening now.”

From across the room, Caleb said, “I’m going to write that down.”

Elliot’s mouth curved.

It changed his whole face.

I looked away before my interest became another thing he had to manage.

He asked for the document photographs after tea.

Grace tried to persuade him to sleep first.

“I’ll sleep better if I know what it says.”

She sighed and brought him a sandwich.

I sent the images to his phone, along with the written stay on the transfer.

He enlarged the agreement.

“Where’s the back?”

“Security photographed both sides.”

“This folder only has the front.”

I checked.

He was right again.

I called the officer and requested the full set.

Elliot ate half his sandwich while we waited. He did it with the intense concentration some people gave to disarming explosives.

I found myself watching.

He caught me.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You keep doing that.”

“What?”

“Looking like you’re about to ask whether I need a blanket.”

Caleb laughed into his mug.

I rubbed my jaw.

“Would you prefer something more original?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Why archival conservation?”

Elliot paused.

Then he looked down at the photograph.

“Because people throw things away when they think they’re beyond repair.”

I considered that answer.

He glanced up.

“I mean books.”

“Of course.”

His ears turned faintly pink.

The full photographs arrived.

He pulled a chair closer to the lamp.

“There,” he said.

I bent beside him, keeping enough distance that he could move freely.

A faint blue manufacturer’s mark appeared on the reverse.

“That paper line didn’t exist four years ago,” he said.

“You recognize it?”

“We used it in a workshop last month. It has a coating that makes certain repairs difficult. I complained about it for an hour.”

“You remember complaints?”

“Mine? Perfectly.”

This time, he smiled without trying to hide it.

I felt it in places that had no connection to the bond.

“We’ll need confirmation from the manufacturer,” he said. “And the original sheet examined.”

“I’ll arrange access.”

He sat back.

“What else do you have from when I disappeared?”

“Not enough. I can request the old incident file.”

His smile vanished.

“Request it tonight.”

At eleven forty, the duty archivist sent me the digitized intake register.

I opened it in the corridor outside the apartment.

Daniel Mercer’s rescue report was there.

So was a missing-person notice from Black Hollow, received three days earlier.

Someone had linked the files.

Then someone had closed them.

The reason appeared in a small box near the bottom.

Domestic residency dispute. No further action.

I stared at the words.

Four years ago, I had been twenty. Already serving patrol rotations. Already proud of the place I called home.

On the other side of the door, Elliot was asking his mother whether she had packed the green sweatshirt.

I knocked.

He answered with my jacket still over his arm.

“You forgot this.”

“Keep it tonight.”

His fingers tightened in the fabric.

“What did you find?”

I held out the tablet.

He read the entry once.

Then again.

His voice was quiet when he finally spoke.

“They knew where I was.”