Page 150 of Pack Frenzy
“Fine, sweetheart.” The old word slips out before I can catch it.
Her brows twitch, that tiny tell that says she noticed. Guilt bites, sharp and unexpected. I swallow it down and correct, fingers tightening on her hip.
“Jess,” I say, like an apology, brushing a kiss across her lips. “I’m fine, Jess.”
Her mouth curves, slow and tender and dangerous. “You remembered to use my name.”
“Of course I remembered your name,” I grunt. “I’m not that big of an asshole.”
“Mmm. Debatable.” She tries to keep it light, but the words land heavier between us. “When we met, you…didn’t bother until I made you.”
“Yeah.” Heat crawls up the back of my neck. I don’t blush; I grind my teeth and let it leak out as a growl. “Don’t think I didn’t hear it. Eli said it first, back at that shitty evaluation room—file in his hand, your picture clipped to the front.Jessica Maria Mancini.He said it like it meant something.”
Her brows pinch, like she’s trying to line up that memory with this moment.
“I told myself it didn’t matter,” I go on. “You were a trial Omega. Ninety days, then a report, then we all decide if we’re staying together or not. And if one of us said no, then the Institute would shuffle you to some other pack. Easier to pretend you were a line on a form than a person I could lose.”
Her hand slides down, resting flat over my heart. It kicks against her palm, traitor loud.
“And now?” she asks quietly.
Now? If some other asshole called her “sweetheart,” I’d break their hand.
I let the truth come, rough and unpolished. “Now if anyone calls you anything but Jess, I want to rearrange their teeth.”
Her eyes go wide and ridiculous, all liquid and starry. “Cass.”
“Don’t say my name like that,” I mutter. My pulse jumps every time she does, which she started recently during her heat cycle, and I’m tired of feeling like a teenager with his first crush. “Makes my heart do stupid shit.”
She shifts again, not that frantic, grinding movement from earlier days, just a slow roll of hips, body checking in with itself. Even mellow, the slide of her skin over mine sends a low growl out of my chest.
“Thought you said it was easing,” she says, smug.
“Less inferno, more controlled burn,” I say. “My self-control’s holding on by a splinter. That’s all.”
“You have self-control?” One corner of her mouth kicks up. “News to me.”
“Had some before I met you.” I cup her jaw, thumb dragging along her lower lip. It’s swollen by me. By Rowan. By Eli. A flicker of possessive pride sparks, bright and mean. “Then you walked in, and now my days are just…managing whatever the hell this is.”
“Which is what?” Her eyes search my face like she expects to find blueprints to the universe written there.
I don’t do feelings. I do load limits, stress points, and how many beams you need before a roof caves in. I can walk into a half-finished build and tell you where it’ll fail just by listening to it breathe.
I know the exact second the load-bearing walls inside my chest shifted and reset around her.
She must see something, because her smile fades into something smaller, careful. “Cassian?”
“When Eli first floated your name,” I say, words slow, like I’m pouring concrete and trying not to spill, “I was skeptical. Thinking you’d bail without me having to do shit.”
Her fingers press a little harder over my heart like she’s checking if it’s still beating.
“I let myself think of you like that,” I admit. “A trial. A test. If I made you real up here,”—I tap my temple, then nudge her hand back to my chest—“and you decided we weren’t it? Or some suit decided to yank you away? That would’ve gutted me. So I played it like business.”
Her throat works, eyes shining. “I figured you couldn’t stand me.”
The quiet way she says it slices cleaner than any blade.
“Jesus, Jess.” My hand tightens on her hip. “I liked you too damn much. First time you sat across from us at that table and told me to use your actual name, I wanted to throw the trial out and keep you anyway. I’ve already got enough shit stuffed in my head. Old fights. Bad calls. People I couldn’t fix. Letting you beyoumeant I didn’t get to walk away if some lab coat decided you belonged somewhere else.”
