Page 43 of Pack Frenzy
The voice turns my blood to ice.
Rowan’s in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame, shoulders filling the space with an ease that makes the room feel smaller. The hallway light cuts across his profile—sharp jaw, dark eyes.
But it’s the calm in his expression guts me.
“I—” The words scrape against my throat raw. “I just needed?—”
“You’re about to break the terms of your contract.” He steps inside, movements unhurried. The door clicks shut behind him with a finality that tightens the air in my lungs.
“My what?” The words come out too high, too defensive.
“The ninety-day trial you signed with Nexus.” His tone stays even; tension rides his shoulders. “No outside contact. No messages. No attempts to reach anyone from your past—no friends, no family, no one. It’s not a suggestion, Jess. It’s the first line of defense keeping you off their radar.”
Heat floods my face: part shame, part anger. “I didn’t read that part.” Actually, I didn’t read any of it; I was just happy to be out of Nexus even if my stay had been super short.
“Then you should start reading things before signing.” He says it without cruelty, just matter-of-fact, and somehow that makes it worse. Like he expected this. Like I’m predictable.
The anger wins. “Safe, right? That’s what you all keep saying. Like isolation’s the same thing as protection. Like being cut off from everyone I care about is supposed to feel like freedom.”
“For now, it is.” He stops a few feet away. Close enough that I catch the scent of rain blooming between us—petrichor and ozone and something uniquelyhim. His voice drops, goes quiet in a way that feels oddly private, like we’re the only two people in the world. “The people who ran that place would track your heartbeat if they could. Contact draws attention. Attention draws audits. Audits mean they find excuses to revoke your placement and drag you back.”
“My friends aren’t dangerous.” My voice breaks on the last word, and I hate it. Hate the weakness. “They’re probably terrified. They probably think I’m dead or worse.”
“Nexus won’t care.” He tilts his head slightly, studying me. “They care about compliance. About control. One email, one message, one digital footprint leading back to you, and they have grounds to claim you violated terms.”
“So I just—what? Forget them?” My voice cracks despite my best efforts. “Pretend they don’t exist? That our friendship means nothing?”
Something flickers across his face—there and gone so fast I almost miss it. “For these ninety days with us,” he says, softer now. “Yes.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” I hate how small my voice sounds. “You still have a life. You have Cassian and Eli and this house and your work. You didn’t lose everything.”
The silence that follows feels like a held breath.
His jaw works once, twice, a muscle ticking like a countdown to detonation. “You’re not the only person in this house who’s had to burn their old life down and start over from ash. The only difference is I didn’t have a choice about the match.”
The rawness in his voice stops my breath. There’s a story there—something jagged and unhealed that he’s wrapped in silence and distance.
“Then help me,” I whisper. “Please. I just need to know they’re okay. That’s all.”
He closes his eyes briefly, and I watch him weigh it. Watch the calculation happen behind his expression—risk versus compassion, rules versus humanity. When his eyes open again, something’s shifted.
“Give me their names.” He exhales slowly. “I’ll look into it quietly. Carefully. But you don’t touch this again. Not the laptop, not my phone, not anything. Understood?”
Relief nearly buckles my knees. “Understood.”
He reaches past me to close the laptop, movements controlled and precise. Our fingers meet on the edge of the screen—skin against skin, the contact so simple it shouldn’t mean anything.
But it does.
Heat crawls up my arm like a lit fuse, every nerve ending lighting up, aware and hungry in a way that terrifies me.
Neither of us moves. We just stand there, fingertips pressed together over cool metal, while something dangerous builds in the air.
His eyes darken, considering it…a war play out across his features—the slight tightening around his eyes, the way the vein in his neck jumps.
“You should leave now before?—”
“Rowan,” I whisper, and I don’t know if it’s defiance or a plea or an invitation. Maybe all three.
