“Now.”
I took her wrist.
She stepped in instead of back.
Her heel struck the top of my boot, her forearm rotated, and the hold broke halfway before her balance failed.
I caught myself from reaching for her right side.
She recovered without me.
“Again,” she said.
On the fourth attempt she reached the door reader.
On the fifth, I blocked the easy angle with my body.
Her left shoulder hit my chest, close enough that the wolf in me surged at the contact.
I forced him down and kept my hands exactly where she had permitted them.
She felt the hesitation.
“Do not make it easy because you want to be decent,” she said.
“Caleb’s scent pressure will not be decent.”
“Mine is not his.”
“Pressure is pressure. I need to know whether my wolf can move through it.”
I set the limit aloud.
“One breath. You say stop, it ends.”
“One breath.”
I let my Alpha scent rise.
Salt, cold stone, and command filled the narrow space.
Her wolf answered at once.
Gold flashed at the edge of her pupils.
Her body went still for half a beat—the dangerous pause when instinct waited to learn whether a stronger animal meant shelter or threat.
Then Elena moved toward me.
Her heel pinned my boot.
Her left forearm tore through the grip.
Wolf strength drove through her legs and shoulder, never touching the damaged hand.
I went back one full step.
The master key struck the reader.
Both exits flashed green.
She chose the one behind me and reached open air before my boot came down again.
I cut the pressure.
My wolf paced under my skin, startled first, then fiercely pleased.
I kept the feeling out of my hands.
“You moved me,” I said.
“Do not sound so proud of yourself. I moved you.”
The corner of her mouth lifted.
Sweat shone along her temple.
Nothing about the drill had healed it.
She had found a way to move that did not require pretending it was whole.
“Do you want help with the strap?” I asked.
She looked down at the brace, tried the buckle once with her left hand, then held the wrist toward me.
“The lower strap only.”
I adjusted the strap.
She stood close enough that a damp strand of hair brushed my wrist.
I wanted to tuck it back.
The wish had nothing to do with the brace.
“Too tight?” I asked.
“No. That’s better.”
I let the buckle go.
Back in the control room, she tested each manual exit while I fetched the coffee I had promised.
She took one sip and looked into the cup.
“You undersold how bad this is.”
“I didn’t want to frighten you before the drill.”
She laughed, briefly.
I nearly spilled my own cup watching her.
“You drink this every day?”
“Only when I make poor decisions.”
“So every day.”
She pulled the family-day invitation closer.
“Send Maya’s authorization. I’ll go.”
“Quinn will be pleased.”
“And bring something better than this.”
She lifted the cup at me.
I found myself wanting to ask what else she liked, where she used to go on mornings that belonged to her.
I settled for asking how she took her coffee.
She told me.
After she left, I put a reminder beside the family-day invitation: Coffee.
Not from the lab.
I remembered her answer without writing it down.
***
Maya called while Felix parked outside the Academy.
“His lunch is in the blue pocket,” she said.
“If he says I let him have syrup for breakfast, he’s lying.”
“He’s sitting right here,” I told her.
Quinn leaned toward the phone.
“It happened once.”
“It happened to your cousin. Be good. I love you.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
He kissed the screen before she hung up.
The authorization on my phone named Felix and me as stand-ins for the day.
I signed with my left hand.
Felix handed me a coffee from the cafe across the road.
I tasted it.
“You remembered.”
“I took the threat seriously.”
“What threat?” Quinn asked.
“She made me drink my own coffee,” Felix said.
Quinn considered that.
“Mom says that’s fair.”
Felix looked at me over the roof of the car.
I had to look down to keep from smiling at him.
At the ticket gate, Quinn shoved his challenge card into his pocket, then took my left hand and Felix’s right like he had practiced it at home.
“Auntie E, Uncle F, we go together,” he said.
The registration camera flashed as Quinn pulled us into the marked square.
He insisted on seeing the picture before we moved.
The same second, the Blackwood motorcade stopped on the main walk.
Caleb stepped out first.
His eyes hit the screen, then dropped to Quinn’s fingers locked around my left hand.
I handed the clerk our authorization.
She scanned it and waved Quinn toward the turnstile.
Caleb’s voice cut across the lane, sharp with the acidic, burnt-ozone scent of an Alpha whose territory had just been publicly violated.
“This is what you call research protection?”
“This is one day a friend entrusted to me,” I said.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
He stayed where he was.
Noah’s door opened on the far side of the car.
The scanner beeped green.
Quinn squeezed both of our hands harder and pulled us through.
Noah jumped down in a deep ink-blue shirt.
A small embroidered wolf paw sat over his heart above the words Blackwood Family Day.
Caleb wore the adult cut of the same set.
Ivy’s soft-shell jacket matched them down to the thread color.
A media board already ran a nine-grid under the tag Alpha’s little pack.
Same paw.
Same blue.
Same public smile.
Someone had timed the release to the second the motorcade arrived.
And every camera on the walkway was turning toward me.
Can’t wait to see what happens next?