Page 127 of Pack Frenzy
Later, when his breathing steadies and my body stops trembling, we lie tangled in sheets that smell like him—sandalwood threaded with rain and heat. His arm drapes across my stomach, heavy and warm.
The house is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of still that usually sends my brain into overdrive of when the next door’s gonna slam.
But tonight, it just feels…still. Which means I’m either healing or I’ve gotten too comfortable. In my experience, comfort’s just the breath before the fall.
I trace the veins on the back of his hand, following the lines to his wrist, grounding myself in his warmth and trying not to think about Blake and Nexus. Or what if I ruin this somehow and it all goes to shit. Rowan’s fingers twitch like he’s half-asleep.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he murmurs into my hair.
A soft laugh slips out. “Sorry.”
He shifts, propping himself on one elbow so he can see me. His hair’s a mess, his eyes soft in a way that feels almost dangerous. “Where’d you go?”
Blake. The tablet. Mr. Callighan has expressed interest. The words flash behind my eyelids like a warning light, each one a countdown I can’t stop. While Rowan looks at me like this—open, trusting—while I hold a grenade behind my back.
I could tell him. Right now. Hand him the truth and let it burn. But I already see how it ends—Rowan going cold, Cassian losing control, Eli calculating the fallout while Nexus watches and writesunstablein the margin. One truth and I could lose all of them.
So I swallow the terror down, trading honesty for time.
“Just thinking about how they tried to make us doubt this,” I say. It’s true—just not the whole truth. The worst lies are always wrapped in something real. “They asked me if I felt… led.”
His expression sharpens. “They asked you that?”
“Like I’m supposed to follow, not decide. Like my choices don’t count unless someone else signs off on them.”
His thumb brushes my cheekbone. “You don’t need anyone to lead you. We lead together. That’s what a pack is.”
“They don’t see it that way.”
“Then they’re wrong. You walked into that place and made them look you in the eye. You walked out still yours. That’s not someone who needs permission, Jess. That’s someone they can’t control.”
The words find all the places Nexus hollowed out in me and fill them with something warm and dangerous.
“I told them we’re partners,” I whisper. “That I don’t need to be led because we’re equals.”
“You are.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “In every way that matters.”
I close my eyes and let myself believe it. Just for now. Let myself exist in this small, stolen peace where it’s only us.
Tomorrow, I’ll figure out what to do about Blake. About Nexus. About a system that still thinks it can sell my freedom with a signature.
But tonight, I slide closer and press my face into Rowan’s shoulder, breathing him in.
“Stay,” he murmurs, already half-asleep.
His hand finds mine under the sheets, fingers lacing through mine with the kind of certainty that comes from muscle memory. Like we’ve done this a thousand times. Like we’ll do it a thousand more. The weight of that assumption sits heavy in my chest.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper back, and everything in me wants it to be true. Even if Nexus thinks they can take me. Even if Blake Callighan thinks I’m his for the asking.
And my throat burns with the lie I’ve lived my whole life—that staying’s easy.
What scares me most is the quiet voice in my own chest—the one that knows staying doesn’t always mean safe.
Sometimes the most dangerous thing isn’t what Nexus can do to us.
It’s what I’m still not ready to tell them.
CHAPTER 31
