“My place is wherever Emily asks me to be. Yours is wherever she allows you to be.” A beat. “And right now she’s telling you that you overstepped.”
“You don’t speak for her.”
“No. But I’ve been here.” Another beat. “Four years, I’ve been here. Where were you?”
Nick goes still.
Not quiet-still. The other kind, the kind that comes before something. His hands close into fists at his sides, slow, one knuckle at a time. His jaw locks. His eyes go dark, the grey swallowed by something deeper, something that doesn’t negotiate.
The walls press closer. I feel it before I understand it. The light dimming, the air thickening, my pulse spiking in my throat. Every instinct, wolf and human, says step back.
I don’t step back.
Alex doesn’t either. His jaw is set. His shoulders are square. Fo
