"How aware?"
"They mentioned the marker at a charity event. Three years ago. What it would look like if someone found a woman in her twenties who carried it." He held my gaze. "They described her. What she might look like."
The air in the room changed.
"They described me," I said.
"A woman matching what she might have grown into. Dark hair, green eyes. The marker." He was very still. "They had guesses about the city she might be in, based on where she'd been last tracked in the foster care system."
"And when I walked into The Apex—"
"I didn't know." He said it clearly, firmly. "I saw a woman with dark hair and green eyes in a bar who'd been rejected by her pack. I didn't run a genetic analysis at the bar." Something moved in his voice — dry, but only surface-dry, with something more
