“You gonna tell me you haven’t felt it?”
“I didn’t say that,” I muttered. “I said keep it together.”
That was the difference between me and them.
They burned loud. I burnedquiet.
Even now, while I kept my body still, my thoughts were anything but. Images flickered behind my eyes, all of them her—pacing her office, hair pulled up tight, lips red from biting back her temper, her scent caught in the thread of her scarf.
I didn’t need to see her slicked and needy and gone to know what I wanted.
I wanted herhere. In her chair. In control. Snapping at us in that low, cutting voice of hers like she always did.
If shewasin heat andhidingit, then she was scared someone would see her come undone. That someone might find out what she really was.
Maybe that someone had already tried. Anger flash-fired through me with brutal effect.
Roan spoke suddenly. “Rylan doesn’t touch her. That’s not up for debate.”
The car went even quieter.
I turned my head toward the window and said, “Agreed.”
Rhett’s voice came low. “He tries, I’ll kill him.”
Roan didn’t argue.
Neither did I.
The truth of that silence was heavier than anything we’d said.
Chapter
Twelve
WREN
The phone buzzed again.
And again.
The muted thrum of it against the thick knit blanket I’d tossed over the kitchen table sounded like thunder against my skull. I didn’t have the energy to reach for it, didn’t have the clarity to care. I’d turned the alerts off, or thought I had. But somehow, the breaking news pings still came through.
Probably about me.
Probably about the photo.
About Rylan.
About the team.
Maybe about Roan. Maybe Rhett. Maybe Jay.
Each time the device shivered, it pulled at a thread I didn’t have the strength to follow. The fog in my skull was dense now, burning at the edges. I’d given up on food hours ago—protein bars and electrolyte drinks lay scattered across the kitchen counter, some half-eaten, others untouched.
I’d torn off my hoodie somewhere between the bathroom and the firewood stack. Now I was curled into a corner of the old leather couch in just a tank and sweats, wrapped in a quilt that didn’t stop the cold or the shivering.
Or the scent.
