"Sit."
I sit.
The silence stretches. He doesn't fill it. He just watches me with those sharp eyes that see too much.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" he asks finally.
The question is simple. The answer isn't.
I look at the desk between us. At the files stacked there, the legal pads covered in his handwriting, the framed photo in the corner I can't see from this angle but know is there.
"Guilt," I say.
"About Vee."
"Yeah."
Arden leans back in his chair and studies me. "You did what Chase asked. You stayed in that pack and you built the case."
"That's not all I did."
The words come out before I've decided to say them.
Arden goes still.
"What do you mean?"
I look at him. At the face I've known for over a decade. The man who slid into a library chair at two in the morning and fixed my citations without being asked and never really left after that.
"Do you remember," I say slowly, "sophomore year? That seminar on omega autonomy?"
Arden's brow furrows slightly. "Of course."
"You stayed up all night helping me with my thesis. The one about registry reform and the fundamental right of omegas to choose their own futures." I pause. "You told me my argument was good. That my instinct for this was right."
"I meant it."
"I know." I exhale. "I've spent my whole life believing what I wrote in that thesis. That omegas deserve better. That alphas have a responsibility. That the system is broken and needs to befought. It’s why I work took a job at the one place the system ismostbroken. To maybe find a way to help from the inside." My voice comes out rough. "I built my identity around that belief. It was the thing I was most sure of about myself."
"Jasper—"
"I'm leaving the pack," I say. "When this is over. When the hearing is done and Vee is somewhere safe, I'm walking away."
The color drains from his face.
"What?"
"I've made up my mind. You can tell Chase for me. Or not, and I'll tell him myself."
He's out of his chair before I finish the sentence, moving around the desk. He stops in front of me, arms crossed, and the professional calm is entirely gone.
"Explain yourself," he says. "Right now."
His growl seeps into his words.
It makes my spine want to curve. Makes every instinct in me scream to submit to the more powerful alpha.
I look up at him.
