Cassian did not take the long route back to the infirmary.
He took the route that ran through the spine of the pack house, where the walls were thickest and the traffic heaviest, because hiding the claim would have turned it into rumor, and rumor was where councils survived.
He led Sable with a firm hand around her wrist, not dragging her and not coddling her either, guiding her with the unarguable certainty of an alpha moving something that now belonged under his protection. The mark at her throat throbbed with every heartbeat, hot and sharp, and the bond beneath it pulsed like a second circulation layered over her own.
