The Alpha’s Contract Mate
Because it removed the category I had already started placing myself into, and replaced it with something I could not yet define.
He paused briefly.
Then spoke again.
“You are considered returning blood.”
The room felt quieter after that sentence.
Not physically.
But in me.
I did not respond immediately, because the words did not make sense in the way they were delivered so calmly, so naturally, like they belonged in a system I had never been taught about.
Returning blood.
My mind repeated it again and again, trying to attach meaning to it, trying to connect it to anything I knew, but nothing came clearly enough to settle it.