Chapter 37 *

Chapter 37 *
Emery's POV
The dress was hanging on the back of my door when I came out of the bathroom.
Floor-length. Deep navy, structured at the shoulders. A note was tucked under the hanger hook in Damon's handwriting: League gala. Two nights out. You'll be accompanying the Alpha. Alterations available if needed.
I stared at it for a long time. Accompanying the Alpha.
I was still staring at it when I heard footsteps in the hall. I leaned against the doorframe and waited.
Logan rounded the corner and almost walked past me before he registered I was there.
"Why me?" I said.
He stopped. Looked at me. The kind of look that took in the whole question before answering any of it.
"I don't have anyone else."
"That's not—" I started. "You're an Alpha. You have people. You could go alone, you could bring Damon, you could—"
"Damon would enjoy it too much." A pause. "And I'm not going alone."
I pushed off the wall. "Then find someone who actually wants to be there. I'm not—" I stopped myself. Tried again. "I don't think this is a good idea. Me, at a league gala, on your arm, two weeks into an evaluation period? That's not a good look for either of us."
He turned to face me fully. For a moment he just stood there, and I had the particular experience of being assessed by someone who was very good at it — not unkind, but thorough. Like being read.
"Fine," he said.
I blinked.
"You're right, you don't have to come." He turned to go. "I was going to start your evaluation cycle next week, but I can push it. We'll find another window."
My hand moved before my brain did.
I grabbed his left arm — my fingers closed around his forearm and he stopped immediately, and then we were both looking at where I was holding on to him. His skin was warm. I hadn't thought about what I was doing until I'd already done it.
"I'll come," I said.
He looked at my hand. Back at my face. He didn't say anything. He just waited, in that way he had, like silence was a position he'd staked out and was comfortable holding.
I let go of his arm. Pulled mine back. Straightened my spine.
"I mean—" I rearranged my face. Went for something warmer. "I would love to come. Genuinely. I'm excited about it. This is — this is a wonderful opportunity and I'm very grateful that you thought of me and—"
"Your face," Logan said.
I stopped.
"You're doing something with your face that you clearly think is convincing." He looked at me for one more second. "Go to sleep."
And then he walked past me and was gone, and I stood in the hallway not sure if I'd just been dismissed or if that counted as winning.
My room was quieter than it had any right to be.
I lay in the bed — and it was a good bed, the kind you didn't fully appreciate until you'd spent time sleeping in places that weren't this — and I did the thing I'd been doing every night in Easthaven for three years. I waited for the list to start. Things I hadn't done. Things I needed to do tomorrow.
The list didn't come.
There was nothing on it. For the first time in three years, there was no list. I had nothing to worry about except myself.
That was the part that got me. How strange that felt. How much it felt like something I'd have to learn again.
I was almost asleep when my phone lit up.
Logan Blackwell — the contact had appeared in my phone the same way he appeared in hallways. Already there, no explanation, apparently just how things were now.
Since you agreed: tomorrow, 10am. Training room, east block. Evaluation cycle starts. 28 days.
I read it twice.
Twenty-eight days.
At the end of twenty-eight days I'd have my evaluation results. I'd have the data I needed to make the case for a Ironridge contract. And on approximately the same timeline — Winona had walked me through the paperwork, the processing windows, the final sign-off requirements — the last of the rejection procedure would be finalized. Done. Clean.
Two things ending at the same time. Two things beginning.
I typed back: Okay.
His reply came in under ten seconds.
You're not asleep. Come downstairs and make me coffee. I'll tell you what you need to know for tomorrow.
I looked at the ceiling.
I thought about several things I could say in response.
Then I got up.
The kitchen smelled like whatever Damon had cooked earlier. I found the coffee equipment where it had been left out — deliberate, probably — and his instructions came through as I was working: grind setting, water temperature, ratio. Specific enough that I had to actually pay attention.
I knocked.
"It's open."
His room was not a room.
I don't know what I was expecting — something like my room, probably, functional and clean. But this was a different thing entirely. The entry opened into a small sitting area. A spiral staircase ran up to a mezzanine I couldn't quite see. Floor-to-ceiling glass on the far wall, the territory spread out below it, dark except for the perimeter lights and the faint grid of the training grounds.
The study was straight ahead.
He was at his desk. Glasses on — I hadn't seen the glasses before. He took the mug without looking away from the screen.
"Come here."
I moved forward. Stopped at what felt like a reasonable distance.
He looked at me sideways. "There's no reason to stand that far away. Can you even see the screen?"
I pulled up the chair beside him and sat.
The screen was a database — fighter profiles, stacked in a grid. Headshots, build stats, fight records, technique breakdowns. Some names I recognized from the regional circuit. Some I didn't. A filter in the top corner read: Female division, grappling-primary.
I went still.
Grappling-primary. That was my division. That was my category. That was what I was looking at — not random data, not a general overview. He was looking at my competition.
He leaned back in his chair. Picked up the coffee. Took a sip without any detectable opinion about it.
"Which style?" he asked. "When you fight — where do you live? Standing or ground?"
I pulled my eyes off the screen.
"Ground," I said. "I'm better once it's on the mat. I can work from standing but my finishes are almost all submissions."