Page 122 of Pack Frenzy
My hands curl into fists around the cool glass. “What did you say?”
“That authority isn’t something you hoard.” Rowan’s eyes don’t leave mine. “It’s something you trust.”
The words settle in my chest, warm and solid, and for a heartbeat the tightness in my throat eases.
Then I hear her voice again—Mr. Callighan has expressed interest—and my stomach lurches.
I should tell them. I should say it right now: Blake wants me. Nexus is already measuring me for a different pack.
But if I do, Rowan will go cold first, then lethal. Cassian turn feral and try to kill Blake. Eli will start calculating odds and outcomes, and they’ll all decide I need more protection, more surveillance, more locks on more doors until this house stops feeling like home and starts feeling like the conference room—sterile and safe and suffocating.
So I swallow everything and take a sip of water instead, letting the cold shock down my throat like I can freeze the words in place.
“I’m okay.” The lie sits heavy in my chest, and I’m terrified he can see it on my face—that I’m not okay, that we might not be okay if Blake and Nexus has their way. And then, because it feels too thin: “We’re okay.”
Rowan’s hand comes up to cup my jaw, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“Then why do you look like you’re still waiting for them to come back?”
The question cracks something open. He’s right. I’m standing here, surrounded by people who chose me, and I still feel like I’m under fluorescent lights.
“I hate that they think they own us.” My voice cracks on the last word, and I hate that too—hate that they’ve gotten under my skin enough to make me feel this small, this powerless. “That they get to decide if we’re allowed to stay together. Like we’re some experiment they’re running.”
Rowan’s other hand finds my hip, anchoring me. “They don’t own anything. Not you. Not us.”
“They think they do.”
“Then they’re wrong.”
It should sound arrogant. It doesn’t. It sounds like a promise—like a line he’s already decided he’ll cross if he has to.
I lean forward, resting my forehead against his chest, and let myself take one full breath. He smells like sandalwood and rain beneath the faint trace of detergent and metal—steady, clean, and cut through with adrenaline and the bone-deep weariness of a man who refuses to fall apart.
“I don’t want to talk about Nexus anymore,” I say into his shirt. “Not tonight.”
His hand slides up into my hair, fingers gentle at the back of my neck. “Then we won’t.”
Behind us, I hear Cassian set the drill down more quietly than usual. Eli’s footsteps retreat toward the kitchen, giving us space we didn’t ask for but need anyway.
I pull back just enough to look up at Rowan. His expression is that familiar blend of control and contained worry, but his eyes are softer now. Open.
“What do you need?” he asks.
The question shouldn’t feel so dangerous, but it does. Because what I need and what I’ve ever been allowed to ask for have rarely been the same thing.
But tonight, after being treated like a file to be updated and reassigned, I am so, so done with asking permission and playing it safe.
This is the part where people leave. Where I get too close and they disappear. My sister. My mother, in every way that counts. Everyone I’ve ever?—
But I’m so tired of being afraid.
My fingers curl into the collar of his shirt. “You.”
The word lands between us, simple and absolute, and I feel it like stepping off a cliff.
Rowan’s eyes darken, his hand tightening just slightly on the back of my neck. “Jess…”
