Page 42 of Untamed

The bond is open wider than it was before the implant, and pieces of the last week keep slipping through before I can stop them. I shove one image down and another takes its place: leather around my wrists, the Doctor’s tablet, Arlo’s name stamped red on a screen. Every effort to close the connection only makes me more aware of how little control I have over what reaches him.

Arlo is standing at the counter when the first memory gets through. His hand stops around a glass as the image of the metal table flashes between us, followed by gloved hands at my hips while the Doctor asks a tech to record my vitals. Arlo’s grip tightens until his knuckles turn pale. I feel his anger before he turns around.

Another memory slips through on top of the first: restraints, the Doctor asking about fertility, and Arlo’s file waiting on the screen while somebody adjusts the voltage. I try to shut the bond down, but Arlo has already set the glass aside. His face is too controlled, which means the anger underneath is worse than anything he would show me openly.

“They threatened you.” My voice comes out defensive before he asks. “A real prison. Transfer back to the primary facility. Every time I cooperated, they left you here.”

Arlo looks at me for several seconds. “So you let them use your body because they put my name on the other side of the threat.” He doesn’t dress it up as sacrifice or thank me for it. “How long?”

“I chose to go.” The words come out sharper than I mean them to. “They didn’t drag me out of the house. I went because I knew what you’d do if I came home after the first examination and told you.”

Arlo’s jaw tightens. “That isn’t what I asked.”

“More than once.” I push myself up from the floor because sitting beneath him suddenly feels unbearable. “You would’ve gone after them. Maybe you would’ve killed another man, and maybe they would’ve buried you somewhere I couldn’t reach. I wasn’t going to hand them that.”

“And you decided losing pieces of yourself was an acceptable price for keeping me here.” His voice stays low, which only makes the anger in the bond hit harder. “You made that decision for both of us.”

I hate the way he says it, as though I was supposed to stand by while the Collective put a cage around his throat. “You spent three years doing the same thing in this house. You decided being alone was safer for everyone and never asked whether anybody else wanted that choice.” I step closer before I realize I am doing it. “Don’t stand there and tell me I’m controlling because I refused to let them take you.”

Arlo looks away first, and the anger in the bond turns messy enough that I can’t tell which part is aimed at me anymore. His hand closes around the edge of the counter, then releases it. “I understand why you did it.”

“Doesn’t sound like it.” I fold my arms because otherwise I’m going to reach for him, and I’m too angry to know whether I want comfort or another argument. “You think I should’ve just let them take you?”

“I think you should’ve fucking told me.” Arlo finally looks back at me. “I can’t live inside a bond where either one of us turns our own body into payment and hides it from the other person. You don’t have to give me every detail, but you don’t get to disappear into one of their rooms for me and decide I’m better off not knowing.”

“You would’ve stopped me.” I uncross my arms and let them fall to my sides.

“Maybe.” His answer is immediate. “Or maybe I would’ve helped you find another way. We’ll never know because you decided I couldn’t be trusted with the choice.”

I know I’d make the same choice again. I look at him and remember the red stamp over his name, the Doctor smiling while he asked whether another Alpha could breed me, and the guards holding my shoulders down for the implant. “If they put your life against mine again, I’m still choosing you.”

Arlo’s expression closes. “That’s exactly the problem.” He picks up the glass he abandoned and sets it in the sink even though it is already clean. “I can’t keep arguing with you while every answer is the same.”

“Fine.” My throat feels too tight around the word. “Then don’t.”

He goes upstairs without another reply. The bedroom door closes a minute later. He doesn’t slam it, which somehow makes the distance feel more deliberate. I retreat to the den and shift because four legs give me something to do with the anger that words are only making worse, and for the first time since the permanent bond formed, I don’t drag Arlo in after me.

That night we miss each other at dinner by twelve minutes. I know because his plate is in the sink when I come into the kitchen, still wet where he rinsed it, and a covered dish waits on the stove for me. He made enough for both of us anyway. I eat standing at the counter and leave his black shirt on even though his scent makes the argument start all over again in my head.

The next morning I wake before him and take coffee back to the den before he comes downstairs. He pauses outside the room on his way to the kitchen, close enough that I can feel him through the wall, but he does not knock. I listen until his footsteps move away. The restraint hurts worse because I know exactly how much he wants to come in.

By afternoon the Council sends somebody to the house. I hear the knock from the den and Arlo answer before the second one lands. His voice is calm at first, then drops low enough that I stop chewing the dried meat in my hand and listen.

“He isn’t available.” Arlo does not open the door far enough for the guard to see inside. “Whatever Graves wants can go through me.”

The guard says something about mandatory post-implant observation. I can’t make out every word through the wall, but I hear my designation and the phrase Council authority. Arlo’s pheromones hit the house hard enough that even from the den my animal instincts lift their head.

“There is no implant anymore.” His voice stays almost conversational. “And you are not walking into this house to examine him because somebody printed a form.”

The guard starts again. Arlo cuts him off before he gets three words out. “Get off my porch.”

The door shuts. I sit in the middle of Arlo’s stolen clothes with his shirt stretched over my knees and stare at the dark doorway. He is furious with me and still putting himself between me and them. I want to go out there badly enough that my muscles tense for it, but I stay where I am.

The second day is worse because we actually see each other. Arlo comes around the corner while I’m carrying laundry toward the den, and both of us stop in the narrow hallway. His eyes go first to the shirt I’m wearing, then to the stack of his clothes in my arms. I wait for one of us to say something intelligent.

“You took my gray hoodie again.” His voice is dry enough that for half a second the house feels normal. “I was looking for that.”

I look down at the hoodie on top of the pile. “It was in the laundry.”