WHAT THE BOND FORGOT

NOW  "She's not going anywhere near that border." Rourke's voice hit the walls of the healing hut like a fist. "Not until I know what Vane's actually planning." "She's not a prisoner." Callum, sharper than Marlowe had heard him yet, standing between the Alpha and the door like he expected one of them to try and go through him. "You can't lock her up and call it protection." "Watch me." "You did this once already. You know how it ended." Rourke's jaw tightened at that, some old argument surfacing between them that Marlowe had no context for and every intention of getting later. "The elders raised Elowen again this morning," Callum said, flat, testing. "Said if the bond's truly broken, an alliance match might serve the pack better than waiting on something that might never heal." "Then the elders can bring it up with me directly, and they'll get the same answer as last time." Rourke didn't even look up. "There's only her. Broken bond or not, there's not going to be anyone else." Something in the flat certainty of it made Callum go quiet, filing the answer away the same way he filed away everything he didn't know what to do with. Marlowe sat up before either of them noticed she was awake, and the room went silent so fast it felt like a held breath. "I'd love to be consulted," she said, "about my own imprisonment." Rourke turned, and whatever he'd been about to say to Callum died somewhere in his throat. For one unguarded second his whole face opened — relief, want, guilt, all three crashing into each other before he shut it down hard enough that she almost doubted she'd seen it. "You're awake," he said, like the words cost him something. "Apparently. Also, apparently, a prisoner." She swung her legs off the cot, ignoring the way the room tilted, ignoring the hollow pull behind her ribs that yanked toward him the second she moved. "Six months gone, and the first thing I wake up to is you deciding my life for me again. Does that pattern feel familiar to anyone else in this room?" "It's not like that." "Then what is it like?" She stood, closing the distance between them before her body finished agreeing to the decision, and the pull in her chest sharpened into something almost unbearable this close, a hook dragged tight enough to make her breath catch. Up close he smelled like woodsmoke and horse and something underneath that her body recognized even though she didn't. "Because from where I'm standing, Alpha, you sent me away once already. Forgive me for not immediately trusting your judgment about what's good for me." Something in his jaw ticked. "I didn't send you away to punish you." "Then why." "Because Vane knows exactly what state the bond is in, and every day you're anywhere near this border, you're a target." His voice dropped, rougher now, closer to something honest than command. "I would rather you hate me from somewhere safe than love me from somewhere I can't protect you." The words landed harder than either of them seemed to expect. Marlowe felt her own pulse answer them before her mind caught up, some old, stubborn part of her chest leaning toward him even as her better sense pulled the other way. "That's not your choice to make," she said, quieter now. "Whatever this bond is. Whatever I don't remember agreeing to. You don't get to decide what I'm willing to risk." "No," he agreed. "I don't. I did it anyway. I'd probably do it again." The honesty of it — the sheer, unguarded weight of it — undid something in her she'd been holding rigid since she woke up alone in a strange bed with six months missing. For a moment neither of them spoke, and the space between them felt smaller than the actual distance, charged in a way that had nothing to do with the argument they'd just been having. Callum cleared his throat, and the moment cracked. "There's a rider at the gate," he said. "From Duskmoor. Says Vane sent terms." Rourke's expression shuttered back into command, but not before Marlowe caught the flicker of something else underneath — fear, maybe, or the particular dread of a man who already suspected what the terms would say. "Terms for what," Marlowe said. Callum's eyes flicked to Rourke, then back to her, and whatever he saw in his Alpha's face made him answer honestly instead of waiting for permission. "For you," he said. "Vane wants the bond-severed mate handed over before sundown, or he says he'll take the whole border by force to get her." The room tilted again, and this time it had nothing to do with bond-sickness. "Me," Marlowe said slowly. "He's naming me. By name." "Yes." She looked at Rourke, and found him already looking back at her with an expression that answered the question she hadn't asked yet — whatever he'd been protecting her from since the moment she woke up, it had just walked up to their gate and put a deadline on it. "Then we answer it together," she said. "Whatever you were about to decide alone in that room just now — don't. Not this time." Rourke held her gaze a beat too long before he nodded, and something about the way he did it, slow and deliberate, told her it cost him more than the words let on.