“I don't know. I didn't ask and she didn't offer the information.” I don't tell him that she asked the exact same thing about him, in nearly the exact same way.
“Tomorrow we'll talk to the betas who abandoned you and Genie,” he says, falling back into a sense of reason. “Do you think you'd recognize the scents of the others?”
“Yes.” The scents are always muted in human form, but they will be the same and I will find them.
“Okay. There will be three more hunts before the first Middle Ground. They're probably going to try to group us together again, but if tonight proved anything, it's that that doesn't matter. We will stay together during the hunts, us and Genie.”
A twinge of apprehension pulls my attention. What if that's the point of this? So much depends on Cross and Genie and those treaties, it makes sense that someone would attempt to push them together. But in a place like Recovery? People come here to heal. Our Elders wouldn't allow that kind of interference here. They wouldn't entertain that type of interruption to the goal of this program.
“How?” I ask, not wanting to be blunt about his wolf. “Will you attend the hunts?”
“I'll find a way,” he says firmly. “How was she when you left her?”
“Pissed off.”
He laughs. “At you?”
“Obviously.”
“But okay otherwise?”
I nod.
“You're staying here tonight,” he says and I take comfort in the authority laced through his words. Not because I particularly enjoy being ordered to do things, but because it feels like it used to. Above everything else, Cross will be my Alpha and I want the peace his authority provides.
***
The next week rushes by in a swirl of pointless classes and literal trust falls. I refuse to participate in those. I don't know thesepeople and I certainly don't trust them. Cross's classes keep him away from me during most of the day, and Genie has kept her distance. If the betas who abandoned us during the last hunt are still here, they're doing a hell of a job avoiding me. The next hunt is tomorrow and I am on edge.
That edge gets sharper when I walk around the corner to my room to find Genie leaning against the wall beside my door.
“What?”
She releases a quick breath and crosses her arms. “They're not here.”
“The betas from the hunt?” I ask, knowing full well that's who she's talking about.
“Yes. They aren't here. I've gone to every residential room. They're not here.”
I quirk a brow. “People just let you into their rooms?”
“Some did, not all.”
“What about the ones who didn't?”
She smirks. “Don't worry about it.”
I close my eyes against the smile threatening to spread. “That's unethical.”
“They should have opened their doors when I asked.”
I smile at her and lean against the wall on the other side of my door. “That's no way to make friends.”
“I'm not here to make friends.”
“Obviously.”
We stare at each other for a few beats without saying anything else and it makes me wonder, really wonder, what it could be like if Cross did claim her. Would she continue to hate me? Would I keep up my lack of appreciation of her? What if we threw the whole thing sideways and actually got along? Even if it was surface-level, it could be functional.
