Chapter 4

Odessa pov

The dining hall smelled like woodsmoke and roasted meat and something underneath that I still hadn't figured out how to name. Warm, wild, the smell of too many bodies that ran hotter than mine crammed into one room.

I stood in the doorway for exactly before every single conversation in there died.

Great. Perfect. Exactly the entrance I was hoping for.

Long tables ran the length of the room, packed shoulder to shoulder with people who all had one thing in common, none of them wanted me here. I felt it land on me the second I stepped inside, that particular kind of silence that isn't really silence at all, just everyone deciding at once not to talk while they stared.

"There's a seat at the end," someone muttered, not even bothering to look at me while they said it.

Of course there was. Furthest one from the fire, closest to the door, exactly where you'd put someone you wanted gone the second dinner ended.

I made myself walk slowly. Rule three. Don't flinch.

Micah was already sitting two seats down, and the second I got settled, he leaned back with his arms crossed like he'd been waiting all day for exactly this.

"So," he said, loud enough for half the table to hear, "does it hurt when you drink from someone? Or is that just something you tell people to make it sound less messed up?"

A couple of people laughed.

"Does it hurt when you shed?" I said. "Genuinely curious. Seems itchy."

The laughter shifted, quick, some of it now aimed at him instead. His face went a shade darker.

"Real cute," he said. "You know what happened to the last person who talked to me like that?"

"Let me guess. You cried about it to your alpha."

That one landed harder than I meant it to. A few people actually went quiet, glancing sideways toward the head of the table, where an older man sat with the same set jaw I already seen on Ronan, clearly his father, clearly listening to every word even while pretending not to.

"Micah." The warning came from further down the table, female. "Let it go."

"I'm just talking to our guest," Micah said, not letting it go at all. "Getting to know her. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Corvin's little charity case, sent to live with the animals."

Something hot and fast twisted low in my chest, the same feeling from the assembly hall, the one that cracked glass without my permission. I felt my fingers go tight around the edge of the table and forced them to loosen, forcing my breathing even, counting the way I taught myself years ago. ‘In for four. Hold. Out for four.’

"Careful," I said, "or I might actually get offended, and you really don't want to see what that looks like."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's a fact." I met his eyes and didn't look away. "Try me and find out."

The room had gone properly quiet now, the kind of quiet that has an edge to it, and I could feel eyes bouncing between the two of us like they were waiting for something to snap.

Micah's chair scraped back, loud, deliberate. "Maybe someone should remind her whose house she's actually standing in."

"Sit down, Micah."

Ronan's voice cut through the room from the doorway, and I hadn't even heard him come in. Micah's jaw worked for a second, clearly weighing whether pushing this further was worth it, and then, slowly, he sat.

"She started it," he muttered.

"Don't care who started it." Ronan crossed the room and dropped into the seat across from me like it was the most natural thing in the world, which made absolutely no sense given the way he talked to me an hour ago. "Finish it."

Micah shot me one last look, sour and unconvinced, and went back to his food without another word.

The rest of the table slowly picked conversations back up, quieter than before, glancing at me every so often like I might do something else strange if they stopped watching. I stared down at the plate somebody had shoved in front of me and tried to remember the last time I actually was hungry.

"You didn't have to do that," I said, low, just for him.

"Do what?"

"Sit here. Defend me. Whatever that was."

"Wasn't defending you." He didn't look up from his own plate. "Was shutting down a problem before it turned into a bigger one. Different thing."

"Sure it is."

"It is." Finally he looked at me, and there was something almost annoyed in it, like he resented having to explain himself at all. "He starts something with you in front of the whole pack, it doesn't stay between the two of you. It becomes a thing everyone has an opinion on. I don't have the patience for that tonight."

"How romantic."

"Wasn't going for romance." He said.

"Clearly."

A ghost of something crossed his face, gone before it fully arrived. We ate in a strange kind of quiet after that, not comfortable exactly, but not hostile either, which given the last twenty-four hours felt like an actual accomplishment.

"Your hands," he said eventually, not looking at me, "back there. When Micah was running his mouth."

My stomach dropped. "What about them?"

"They were shaking. Then they weren't." He finally met my eyes again. "You did that on purpose. Calm yourself down."

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said

"There it is again." He said it flat, no heat behind it, just an observation. "You do that a lot. Say you don't know when you clearly do."

"Maybe I just don't trust you enough to explain it."

"Fair," he said, and it caught me off guard how easily he admitted it, no argument, no offense taken. "Doesn't mean I'm wrong, though."

Before I could answer that, the older man from the head of the table rose, and the whole room settled instantly, conversation dying without him having to say a single word. Whatever authority Ronan carried, his father carried triple.

"Tomorrow," the man said, voice carrying ease across the hall, "training resumes at dawn. Full pack, no exceptions." His eyes found me, briefly, unreadable. "Our guest will observe. Ronan, she's your responsibility. See that she understands what she's watching."

Murmurs rippled through the tables. Micah, a few seats down, looked far too pleased with that idea for my comfort.

"Dawn," Ronan repeated, mostly to himself, like he wasn't thrilled about it either. "Great."

"I don't need a babysitter," I said under my breath.

"Not up for debate." He stood, plate in hand, already done with the conversation. "Be ready by sunrise. You're not going to like what you see, so brace for that now." Ronan said

"I've seen plenty of things I didn't like lately. I'll manage."

Something flickered behind his eyes, he just nodded once and turned to leave.

I sat there a while longer after most of the hall had cleared out, picking at food I still didn't have any appetite for, replaying the whole strange night in my head, Micah's sneer, Ronan's flat defense, that half-second where his eyes had actually looked ‘worried’ about me instead of being annoyed.

I was still turning it over when a shadow fell across the table, and I looked up to find the girl from earlier standing there, the one who told Micah to let it go. She looked younger than I guessed, sharp-eyed, arms crossed tight.

"You've got guts," she said. "I'll give you that."

"Thanks. I think."

"Wasn't a compliment." She glanced toward the door Ronan had disappeared through, then back at me, something calculating in her expression. "You should know something before tomorrow."

"What's that?"

"Training's not just training." Her voice dropped lower, like she didn't want it carried. "Not with what happened at the border. Half this pack thinks your house killed one of ours, and tomorrow they're going to want somewhere to put that."

My mouth went dry. "Meaning what, exactly?"

She didn't answer right away. Just looked at me a long moment, weighing something, before her eyes flicked past my shoulder toward the window, and whatever she saw out there made every trace of color drain straight out of her face.

"Get down!" she said, and shoved the table hard enough to send it screeching sideways just as the glass behind me exploded inward.