Chapter 10 · Archive

"Give me the file, Rowan." Callum's palm hit the door before I could shut it, and the whole steel frame rattled in its track.

"Get your hand off my door."

"It's pack property. So is the door. So is the ledger you're hiding behind that desk." He shoved through, and the smell of him — cedar smoke, rain, something under it that used to mean home — filled the narrow room before I could brace for it. The mark on my collarbone went hot, that same ugly burn it's had for five chapters straight, like a coal somebody keeps pressing flat against my skin.

"You don't get archive access after hours. Not even you."

"I'm the Alpha."

"You're the Alpha who rejected his mate in a glass chapel with two hundred witnesses and a live stream running. Forgive me if I don't jump to hold the door for you."

His jaw ticked. Good. I wanted that. I wanted him standing in my archive with his tux jacket still smelling like the rehearsal dinner, sweating, because for once he didn't have the floor.

"Elena's father is downstairs telling the port board that our filing's clean," Callum said.