Pain struck Dove’s shoulder first. Then Thorne’s hand tightened around her wrist, and the ordinary noise of the hall seemed impossibly far away.
"Let go of me," she said. "You’re hurting me."
He stood between her and the passage, breathing hard, his eyes fixed on her face as though he had lost the ability to hear. She tried to pull free and discovered how little difference her full strength made against one of his hands.
"You keep coming near me," he said. "You smell like this, and you expect me to believe you don’t want anything?"
"I came for water. Get off me."
She pushed against his chest with her free hand. He caught that wrist too, and panic made her thoughts turn horribly simple. She needed room. She needed air. She needed somebody to hear the word he was ignoring.
"You want a mate," he said, his voice rough. "Then stop playing with me."
"I don’t want you touching me. Let go, or I’m going to scream."
She had seen him looking at her and thought he was handsome. That fact seemed absurd now, a useless detail about the man keeping her against a wall. It did not make his grip less painful or her refusal less clear.
Dove drove her heel down toward his foot and shouted. The attempt did not free her, but it broke through the passage noise. Someone called from the hall.
Thorne turned his head, and a black sleeve crossed Dove’s vision. Ash seized him by the back of his coat and hauled him away hard enough that Dove stumbled without the wall at her shoulders.
She caught the support column instead of falling. Her wrists hurt. The basin rolled a little when Thorne’s boot struck it, and she watched that small, stupid movement because it was easier than looking at either man.
"Stand down," Ash told him.
Thorne’s breathing remained harsh. "She came around the corner. Her scent..."
"You were told to leave the occupied passages when it started. Move."
Heat, Dove understood from the words, or whatever these men called it. Something he had known was happening before he put his hands on her. Knowing its name did not make her feel safer.
Ash looked at her then, his expression still hard. "Stop provoking the men to see what they’ll do. You know what scent does during a rut."
For a moment, Dove could only stare at him. He had pulled Thorne away. She had thought, for half a breath, that somebody had finally seen what was happening.
"I told him no."
"Then don’t lead him into a corner and pretend you don’t understand the result."
"He was already here. I was getting water."
Ash glanced at the basin, but his face gave her nothing she could hold onto. Thorne moved beside him, and Ash took his arm again before the panther could turn toward her.
"Go back to your stall," Ash said. "Kael will check you."
"I don’t need an instruction about where to stand. I need you to hear what I just said."
He left with Thorne anyway. The two men disappeared around the opposite bend, toward the outer service route, while Dove stood beside an empty basin and tried to stop her hands from shaking.
Her cheek felt hot where her hair had been caught against the concrete. She freed the strands with careful fingers and checked the corner before moving. Nothing about the passage had changed. The same taps ran beyond it, the same voices carried from the hall, and she could not understand how somewhere so ordinary had become a place she wanted never to enter again.
She waited until their footsteps had gone. Then she picked up the basin, slowly, because bending pulled at her sore shoulder. Her wrists already showed red marks. She kept looking at them as though the evidence might persuade someone who had not wanted an explanation.
"Your interest in Thorne appears mutual," Sprout said brightly. "This could support a valuable partnership."
Dove went so still that the system fell silent halfway into its next suggestion.
"I thought he was attractive before he grabbed me," she said inside her head. "That isn’t permission. I said no. If you’re going to live in my skull, learn the fucking difference."
No cheerful answer followed. She told it to stop giving relationship advice and not to interrupt her with reaction notices. It confirmed the notification change in a small, plain window she immediately closed.
Back at the stall, Dove put the basin behind the tarp and sat on the edge of the mat. The corner still smelled of her soap. Her blanket still lay where she had folded it. She had been planning a gate less than an hour ago.
She could not quite convince her body that nobody was holding her anymore. Each sound outside made her look toward the gap, and she hated that she was waiting for footsteps to stop there.
Kael arrived without pushing past the counter. "Ash sent me," he said.
"What did he tell you?"
"That Thorne caught hold of you during a rut and that your wrists needed checking."
"Did he mention the part where I apparently arranged it?"
Kael’s expression changed. She could not name exactly how, but he did not ask her what she had done to encourage Thorne.
"May I come behind the counter?" he asked.
The question nearly undid her. It was so small and so late, and she had not realized how badly she needed to hear it until it was already there.
"You can stand by the tarp," she said. "Don’t close the gap."
He did exactly that. He brought no crowd and called nobody over to look. When she showed him her wrists, he asked before taking the first one, and waited until she agreed.
"I told him to let go," she said, watching Kael’s hands instead of his face. "More than once."
"I heard you just now."
She had prepared to explain again, more clearly this time, as if the right wording might finally make refusal count. Instead, she sat with that answer and felt how tired she was.
Kael finished looking at her wrist without tightening his grip. Then he asked, quietly, "Do you want me to stay while you decide what you need?"