Chapter Eighteen
ISAAC
The board meeting where Rowan weaponized Dean's heat happened on a Monday.
I found out about the leak when Bastian Rook's office called us with a meeting request "to discuss concerns about the bond's stability," which was how people in their position said we know something we weren't supposed to know and we're going to use it.
I sat in the meeting next to Micah and watched Rowan outline the "concerns" — the report that an omega with an active scent-match had experienced heat instability in the care of an unregistered beta, suggesting the official bond was compromised — and felt the particular cold anger that I usually reserved for things that required precise, unhurried responses.
"The official bond between Isaac Price and Dean Grant is fully stable," Micah said. Flat. Certain.
"The reports suggest otherwise."
"The reports describe a voluntary and well-managed heat cycle. Any stability concern is manufactured."
"The presence of a beta in a heat-care scenario—"
"Is not illegal and not your business." I said it before Micah could, which was unusual. I usually let him take the board adversarially. "Dean Grant's heat care decisions belong to Dean Grant. His designation, his biology, his choices."
Rowan spread his hands with the particular patience of someone who thought they had the winning position. "The succession filing requires a stable, recognized bond. Any evidence that the omega-primary relationship is being diluted by—"
"The bond is not being diluted." The anger was still cold, still controlled, but it was in my voice now.
"The bond is exactly what it is. What you're actually concerned about is the fact that a beta is becoming relevant to the pack structure, which threatens the clean succession narrative you've been building. "
Bastian Rook shifted in his chair.
"Dean will not be erased from his own health care decisions to make your filing easier," I continued.
"Avery Yates will not be categorized as a contamination variable.
And if you attempt to use private health information to pressure pack formation decisions, I'll be talking to Marin Solberg about the specific legal implications of that approach. "
The room went quiet.
Micah's hand was flat on the table. Not closed. That was the tell.
"We're not trying to create a problem," Rowan said, recalibrating. "We're trying to secure the succession."
"Then secure it around reality," Micah said. "Not around a fictional pack structure that none of us are actually living in."
We left the meeting and walked to the elevator and Micah looked at the floor numbers and said, quietly: "Thank you."
"You didn't need the help."
"I needed to hear someone else say it." He was still looking at the numbers. "That she's not a contamination variable."
"She isn't."
"I know." A pause. "Knowing it and hearing it said in that room are different."
The elevator opened. We walked out into the lobby and I thought about the morning in Avery's kitchen — the coffee, the revision notification on her phone, the specific quality of ordinary that had overlaid the extraordinary in a way that felt like a preview of what the future could be — and I thought about Dean's heat and Micah's hand on Avery's and the room working in a way that rooms didn't work when the biology was wrong.
"I told her something last night," Micah said.
"What."
"That whatever the next step is, it belongs to her."
"Good."
"She said she heard me." He paused on the sidewalk outside the building. The afternoon was cold and clear. "Isaac."
"Hm."
"We're building something real."
I looked at him. "I know."
"I'm saying it out loud because we agreed we needed to get better at the naming."
I held his gaze for a moment. "We're building something real," I confirmed.
The naming sat between us in the cold air, and I let it.
* * *
* * *