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Chris held still across the table. “Has it stopped?”

“Not yet.” She took another bite. “But it will.”

“Gideon doesn’t think he’s that disciplined.”

“Gideon doesn’t know him.” Her mouth pulled. “Not a lot of people do.”

“You might feel that way.” Chris picked up his sandwich again. “But it’s not about you. Gideon doesn’t like change. You represent about six kinds of change happening at once.”

She looked at him. He was eating without ceremony, his elbows on the table, his jaw working steadily. He caught her looking.

“What?”

“You’re being reasonable about Gideon.”

“I’m just explaining his point of view.”

She turned her plate. Picked up the other half of the sandwich. The rain was louder now, a wall of sound against the glass.

“My aunt used to do that,” she said.

Chris stilled. His eyes came up, careful, the blue steady.

“Explain people.” Sloane looked at the table, at her hands on the bread. “When I was young. After my father was banished. My aunt Iris took me in.” The words came out flat. She kept them flat on purpose. “She would explain people to me when I couldn’t understand why they acted the way they did. She’d say, He isn’t angry at you. He’s angry at the situation. You’re just standing in it.”

She took a bite. The bread was harder to chew now.

“You were six.” His voice was level. He hadn’t moved, hadn’t leaned forward, hadn’t done any of the things people did when they smelled a story they wanted more of.

“Yes. When I went to live with her. After my father…”

The silence held. She could hear his breathing across the table, could feel the bond shift between them. His attention was focused, contained, aimed at her without pressing. She’d felt men’s attention before. It usually came with weight, with expectation. His sat like an open hand.

“He always was a problem. Conduct unbecoming. Crossing lines he shouldn’t have crossed.” She put the sandwich down. “The pack threw him out because he was a risk. Nobody ever asked what kind of problem he was at home.”

Chris’s hands were flat on the table. His fingers didn’t tighten. His face didn’t change. But the bond between them went hot, a surge that told her his body had understood what his expression refused to show.

“Iris was his sister. My father’s sister.” She picked at the crust on her plate, pulling it apart in small pieces. “She wasn’t cruel. She fed me. She put me in school. She taught me to braid my own hair when she realized nobody had taught me before.” Sloane’s thumb pressed into the soft center of the bread. “But she wasn’t warm, either. She was careful. She kept her distance because she knew what her brother was. She couldn’t look at me without seeing him, so she looked at me as little as possible.”

She let the bread fall. Brushed the crumbs from her fingers.

“The day they dragged Garrett off Beaumont land, I stood in the doorway of our house. Six years old. I watched two patrol wolves put him in restraints. He looked back at me.” Her voice didn’t waver. She’d practiced this. Not the telling of it, but the holding of it, the ability to carry these facts in her mouth without choking. “He said he’d come back for me.”

Chris’s jaw was set. She could see the muscle working below his ear.

“I was glad,” she said. “When they took him. I stood in that doorway, six years old, watching the worst thing in my life get hauled away in restraints. I was so glad I couldn’t breathe.”

The rain filled the room. She stared at the plate. Chris stared at her.

“Iris died when I was sixteen,” she said. “Heart failure. It was quick. She went to sleep one night, just didn’t wake up.” Sloane straightened in her chair. Pulled her shoulders back. The posture was automatic, the body’s refusal to fold. “After that it was just me.”

“Ten years,” Chris said. His voice was rough at the edges.

“Ten years. Eight of them with Iris. The first two were the hardest. I’d wake up in her spare room, in the dark, hear the house settle, think it was him. I’d lie there with my hands over my mouth so I wouldn’t make a sound.” She swallowed. “Iris never came to check. I don’t think she knew. Or she knew, but checking would’ve meant talking about it, so she stayed in her room.”

Chris pushed his plate to the side. He wasn’t eating anymore.

“That’s why the Luna trials mattered,” she admitted. “The Luna is untouchable. Second most powerful position in the pack. If I could get there, Garrett couldn’t reach me. Nobody could reach me.”