Page 25 of Untamed

Small bare feet slap down the hall before I can suggest we leave. A little boy appears in the doorway wearing a shirt too big for him, takes one look at Orion, and comes straight toward him with both arms lifted.

Orion’s whole body goes still. He looks at the child, then at me, clearly trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do with a tiny human who has already decided the answer for him.

Preston appears behind the boy and catches the look. “Same kid who climbed onto you last time. He shifts. Fox that day, human today.”

Orion looks from Preston back to the child, studying the little face like he can find the fox somewhere underneath it. “That was him?”

“Yeah.” Preston stays where Orion can see him instead of coming closer. “You don’t have to pick him up. He just remembers you.”

The boy pats Orion’s knee and reaches higher. Orion watches those small hands for another second before sliding one arm beneath him and lifting him carefully. The kid immediately grabs a fistful of Orion’s curls and leans against his chest without the slightest hesitation.

Orion’s shoulders lock even though his grip stays loose.

Preston doesn’t laugh or tell him to relax. “If he throws himself backward, support his head. He does it without warning.”

Orion shifts his hold, bringing his other hand up behind the child’s back. His palm nearly spans the boy from shoulder to hip, but he keeps the pressure light while the kid starts playing with the zipper on his cargo pocket.

Slate appears in the doorway a moment later. He looks at the folder on the table, then at Orion holding the child, and his fingers brush the old removal scars at his neck before dropping again.

Orion follows the movement immediately. “Those are from the bonds they removed?”

Slate nods. “Six of them.” He steps into the room but doesn’t come closer than the end of the table. “They wrote everything down about me too. What I ate. Who I looked at. How long I slept after they cut one out.”

Orion’s hand stays steady on the child’s back. “Did it ever stop feeling like they were still watching?”

Slate takes his time answering, eyes dropping briefly to the reports between us. “Not because somebody told me I was safe. It got quieter when I started deciding what they were allowed to know.”

The boy has found the zipper on Orion’s cargo pocket and is tugging it up and down, completely absorbed in the sound. Orion watches him for a moment before looking back at Slate. “What are they allowed to know now?”

“Only what I choose to give them.”

We stay long enough for Malik to copy the surveillance notes and for Kael and Thane to work out which windows face the nearest tower. Preston takes the child back once he starts falling asleep against Orion’s chest, and Orion lets him go with one last look at the little face, still connecting this sleepy kid to the fox that climbed all over him weeks ago.

On the walk home, he stays close without speaking. I don’t try to fill the silence because there’s nothing useful I could put into it anyway. The reports have given both of us enough to carry, and Orion’s shoulder brushes mine twice before either of us adjusts our path.

Halfway back, he makes a low sound in his throat and turns his head toward the guard tower on our right.

“They can see the front room from there,” I say.

His ears angle forward as he keeps watching the tower, another quieter sound rolling out of him.

“Yeah, I know. Curtains first.”

Chapter Fifteen

Orion

The desk catches on a warped floorboard and refuses to move another inch. I set my shoulder against it, shoving until it clears the ridge and blocks the cleanest line from the hallway to the middle of the den. The dresser is already angled across part of the window, a chair wedged beneath the knob, two of Arlo’s shirts buried in the blankets because his scent makes the room easier to breathe in.

I’m coming back from the kitchen with dried meat in one hand when I find Arlo in the hallway looking over what I’ve changed. His gaze moves over the desk, the dresser, then the chair beneath the knob. “You moved the furniture.”

I pull the meat from my mouth. “It was in the wrong place.”

His eyes stay on the barricade for another moment before he turns toward the office, leaving me with the room exactly as I arranged it.

I stay in the doorway after he disappears until the tension finally leaves my shoulders. I still wait there longer than I need to before closing the door. The house stays quiet through the afternoon. Rain stops ticking against the windows, the wind drops, and even the guards on the road seem to have found somewhere else to stand. I stay human and make myself name each sound before I react to it: pipes in the wall, footsteps on the road, Arlo turning a page in the office.

By evening, every small sound is scraping at me. A branch drags once along the siding, something moves beneath the back steps, and the refrigerator kicks on and my head snaps toward it before I remember what it is. Arlo’s in his office with the door open, close enough through the bond that I know where he is without seeing him, but staying human isn’t making any of it easier.