Chapter 11 #3
She stops. Reads me. Whatever she finds in my face is not what she expected because her expression shifts. The pre-decision look is replaced by something more careful. “What?”
I breathe deeply.
I’ve been running this since last night.
Since three in the morning when the bond-pull went hot in my chest. I sat on my bed thinking about partial bonds and pack dynamics and what it means that she walked into this valley and the territory rearranged itself around her before any of us had a plan about it.
“The pack,” I say.
“What about the pack?”
“They feel it too.” I hold her gaze. “What I feel—the pull, the recognition, whatever you want to call it—it’s not just mine. The partial bond touched the edges of all of them when you walked into the territory. Ryan, Tristan, Archer.” I pause. “They’re all feeling something. About you.”
She is very still. “I know that,” she replies carefully.
“I know you know. I’m not telling you something new. I’m telling you that I think you should give one of them a chance. At some special one-on-one time, you know?”
The stillness shifts into something else. “Excuse me?”
“Before this,” I say, gesturing between us. “Or instead of, for tonight. One of the others.”
“You’re—” She stops. “You’re suggesting I go be with someone else?”
“I’m suggesting you don’t let the partial bond make me the default,” I say. “Because that’s what’ll happen if we keep going right now. You’ll end up in bed with me because the bond makes it easy and familiar, and you’ll never give the others a real—”
“Jack.” Her voice has an edge. “Are you genuinely, right now, telling me to go have sex with someone else?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“Why?”
“Because you deserve the whole thing,” I say, trying desperately to salvage the conversation. “Not just the part of it that happened by accident in the dark.” I hold her gaze. “Because I want you to give the pack some consideration. Not because the bond pointed you at me and it was convenient.”
She stares at me.
“That’s either the most selfless thing anyone has ever said to me,” she says slowly, “or the strangest rejection in recorded history.”
“It’s not a rejection,” I say. “It’s a rain check with very specific reasoning.”
“A rain check,” she repeats.
“A temporary and entirely strategic delay.”
She stares at me for an extended period. The reading look with a full inventory, nothing missed. “Who? Who do you want me to have sex with?” she asks finally.
“Archer,” I reply.
The look she gives me could strip paint. “Archer?”
“Archer,” I confirm.
“Archer, who grabbed my wrist on the river path.”
“Archer, who also couldn’t stop thinking about you afterward, which I know because I share a pack bond with him and subtlety is not his strongest—”
“Archer,” she says again, like she’s testing whether the word changes meaning with repetition. “You want me to go have sex with Archer.”
“I think it would be good for—”
“Jack.” She crosses her arms. “Seriously. Archer is going to give me a better time than you?”
I look at her. I take my time with this. “You’d be surprised.”
Silence. She uncrosses her arms. “That’s a very confident thing to say about someone else.”
“I’ve known Archer for seven years. I know exactly what he’s like when he stops being suspicious of something and starts being… the other thing.”
“The other thing?”
“The other thing,” I repeat. “Which I am not going to describe because certain matters are better left to exploration than pre-explanation.”
The carnival hums beyond the maze. The area is dim and she is still very close to me. The partial bond is still running its frequency and I am making what I genuinely believe is the right call and it is costing me considerably.
“You’re serious,” she says.
“Completely.”
“And if I say no? If I say I don’t want Archer, I want you, right now?”
“Then I’ll revisit my position. Because I’m making a suggestion, not a rule. You don’t follow my rules.”
“No,” she agrees. “I really don’t.”
She looks at the maze wall. At the carnival beyond it. At me. “He’s going to be insufferable about this.”
“Probably,” I agree. “He’s going to be insufferable in a very specific and reportedly worthwhile way.”
“Reportedly,” she says. “By who?”
“The pack bond has no privacy settings. That’s all I’m saying.”
She stares at me. “You are unbelievable.”
“Yes,” I agree.
A pause. Long enough to be a decision being made.
“Fine.” One word. Clipped. With the energy of someone who has assessed a situation and chosen their position and is committing to it. “Archer. Tonight.”
My heart pounds heavily in my chest, partly from relief and partly from the ache of doing the right thing when the right thing is not the easy thing.
“Good,” I reply.
“Don’t look smug about it.”
“I’m not smug.”
“You have the smug face.”
“This is my regular face.”
“Those are the same face,” she says.
She steps out of the area and back into the carnival. I watch her go and I think: Archer has no idea what’s coming. I consider, briefly, whether to warn him.
I decide that some things should be discovered rather than briefed.
I follow her out into the carnival light.