I leaned into it. I didn't hesitate.
The biological pull of the tether was too strong to deny. I slumped sideways against his chest. He wrapped an arm around my back, his ozone scent grounding the spiral in my exhausted mind.
"Trent won't broadcast a confirmed Pack-Heart to the Northern registry yet," Chris said from behind me, forming the third wall of the perimeter. "If he does, he loses any chance of negotiating a private claim for himself. He'll try to corner you quietly. He'll use obscure clauses from your original severed contract to force a legal custody battle."
"He can't have me," I cried, burying my face in my hands. "I won't go back to him. I'd rather sever the artifact myself. I'd rather burn out my own core?—"
"Stop." Hayes gripped my wrists and pulled my hands from my face.
He looked at me. The gold in his eyes was steady. Unwavering.
"You are not a political pawn anymore, Wren," he said. "You belong to this perimeter. Let Trent file a legal claim. Let him bring the entire Northern council down to Aldridge."
His gaze lifted over my head — to Tristan, then to Chris. An unspoken alliance cemented in silence.
"If Trent Hawthorne ever wants to touch you again," Hayes said, his voice a low, absolute vow, "he goes through us to do it."
13
TRISTAN
The sandbag swung back on its chains, the leather groaning. I drove my knee into the center with enough force to crack the inner foam core.
The snap echoed across the empty combat arena. It didn't do a single thing to settle the charge crackling under my skin.
I was furious. A dark, territorial fury I'd spent three days suppressing behind a carefully constructed frat-boy smile and empty academic jokes.
Trent Hawthorne.
Just the thought of him touching Wren's jaw in the courtyard made the beast in my chest roar for blood. He'd looked at her like a toy he'd dropped in the dirt and was only now returning to claim. He hadn't seen the terror in her eyes. Hadn't seen the way her body flinched at his proximity — the psychological damage running far deeper than the physical scar he'd carved into her neck.
I hit the bag again. Left, right, an uppercut that tore the leather seam near the top.
Sand spilled onto the mat.
"You're going to have to pay the bursar to replace that," Hayes observed from the sidelines.
He was sitting on a metal bench, a towel around his neck, looking as wound-up as I felt. His pine scent was sharp today — masking an underlying anxiety that only Chris and I could read. A general trying to secure a compromised border.
"Bill it to my family's account," I growled, pulling off my hand wraps. "I'll tell my father it's a training expense to prepare for the inevitable territorial bloodbath when Trent tries to file a custody claim."
"Trent won't file a public claim in the registry," Chris said, walking into the arena with a tablet instead of his usual stack of ancient texts.
His amber eyes were sharp. The hyper-focused look of a strategist dismantling an explosive. "I've been reviewing the archaic bylaws governing severed tethers all afternoon."
"And?" Hayes demanded.
"A severed tether legally reverts the omega to an unbonded, neutral status — emancipating them from the original dynasty's control," Chris explained, swiping across the tablet. "However, Trent's father included a 'retroactive asset recovery' clause buried in the original dowry paperwork Wren's family signed."
"Define 'asset recovery,'" I said.
Chris looked up, expression grim. "If the omega is proven to possess a latent magical abnormality that alters their political or monetary valuepost-severance, the original contract can be retroactively enforced through a private council tribunal. They claim they were defrauded by the initial concealment of the asset."
"What counts as a latent magical abnormality under the clause?" I said.
Chris set the tablet down. "In modern pack law, there's only one biological anomaly significant enough to retroactivelyrewrite a contract: a verified Pack-Heart. An omega whose magical core can simultaneously anchor and amplify the power of multiple alphas. Historically, the dynasties that controlled a Pack-Heart controlled the outcome of territorial wars. The modern council treats one as a continental stabilizing asset — something to be owned and strategically deployed, not protected."
I threw the wraps onto the bench. "He's treating her like stolen commercial real estate."
