I'm not sure I have a word for what that is.
"What happened that night?" I ask. "At the bar."
"There was an omega. She had her daughter with her. Her alpha had been hurting her for a while before I got involved. I'd noticed her around. Seen the bruises." His voice doesn't change. Still even. But underneath it, there’s an old weight he's learned to carry rather than set down. "When I saw him hit her that night, I stepped in. It escalated. It went too far."
"You tried to stop it."
"Yes."
I let the full shape of that sit. The cruelty of it. A man who stepped in front of an omega being hurt, went to prison for it, and came out the other side with a registry flag that says he's too dangerous to be near the very people he was trying to protect.
"That's—" I stop.
"Yeah," he says. Like he already knows. Like he's had that thought ten thousand times and has made an uneasy peace with it.
We sit with it.
"Is it really going to be that hard? Getting the flag removed?"
"Chase is working on it but we don't know yet. He says I've done all the right things. I did the time. I was in therapy for anger management for years. I've done the work."
"What do you expect from me if he does get it removed? If your circumstance changes?"
He shakes his head. "Nothing. I don't expect anything."
"But your pack wants me."
"My pack very much wants you." He says it without hesitation. "Not because of the scent match, though that's part of it. Because it's you. We know you. You know us." He turns to look at me. "We wantVee. That's all."
"But you can't have me."
The corner of his mouth moves. Not quite a smile. "Not yet, anyway."
The words get comfortable in my chest, like living things nesting inside me.
I look down at the shirt. The enormous, strange-scented shirt that calms me down for reasons I still can't explain.
"You knew about the shirts," I say. "When you saw it this morning. You knew."
Not a question.
He doesn't deny it. "Arden will explain that. When the time is right."
"You guys keep saying that."
"Because it's true." He looks at me steadily. "Some things need the right moment. This isn't it yet."
I let that go for now. There's a larger question sitting underneath it anyway.
"When did you figure it out?" I ask. "That I was your match."
He's quiet. Deciding.
"Eight months ago," he says. "In a hardware store parking lot. I was loading lumber while Malcolm was still inside." He pauses. "The wind shifted."
I wait.
"Your scent hit me before I could see you. I dropped my keys I was so stunned. I just... stood there in the middle of the lot while my entire nervous system rearranged itself around someone I hadn't found yet." He goes silent. Like he's back there. "Then I saw you. Thirty feet away, loading groceries. Ragon was with you."
