I blinked.
He shrugged, voice casual. “Man’s best friend and all that. We’re loyal. We watch. We listen. I’ve been watching you for years.”
And knowing that gave me comfort.
“So, you’re blaming this on your shifter instincts?”
“Partially. Also, you’re not that hard to read.”
“I amincrediblymysterious,” I said.
“You arepainfullyearnest.”
I shoved him lightly, and he smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Not this time.
I worried him with my observations about Gideon.
We walked again, slower now. The quiet between us had thickened, but it wasn’t with tension exactly, but with the weight of unspoken worries. He thought Gideon had manipulated me, and I wasn’t able to decipher it.
I glanced at him.
His jaw was tight with that look again that screamed protective, but also slightlyguarded.
And that’s when it hit me.
He wasn’t upset about Gideon.
He was worried aboutme.
“You think I’m being pulled in,” I said.
He didn’t answer right away.
Then, with a careful breath, he said, “I think you see the cracks in people, and instead of stepping back, you reach into them.”
“I don’t want to fix him,” I said quickly. “Ican’tfix him.”
“But you want to know why,” Keegan said. “And that’s dangerous, Maeve. Because sometimes when you stare into the wound too long, it becomes part of you.”
The silence returned as quiet as snowfall.
We reached the edge of the building, where the path forked toward the Flame Ward or back to the Butterfly Ward alley. The streetlamps flickered above us, casting warm gold halos around the curling branches overhead.
“I’m not naïve,” I said.
“I know.”
“And I don’t trust him.”
“I know that, too.”
“But you’re still worried,” I added, softer now.
He didn’t deny it.
Instead, he looked at me like he was memorizing something. “I just don’t want to watch you break open because you’re trying to understand someone who thrives in the dark.”
