"Yes." The word came out rough, automatic, pulled from somewhere deep.
"Good." She released my hand, and the absence of her touch felt like a wound. "And Silas?" She paused, something almost like a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
"Yes?" The word came out rough and wary, my body tensing like I was bracing for a blow.
"You're not a monster. You're just a man who went through something terrible and came out the other side different. There's nothing monstrous about surviving." Her voice went soft, and those green-gold eyes held something that looked dangerously like understanding as she held my gaze for one long moment.
Then she turned and walked back to her truck. I watched her climb in, watched the vehicle rattle to life, watched her driveaway down the gravel road until she disappeared around the bend.
I stood there for a long time after, my hand still tingling where she'd touched it.
Thursday. Four days.
I had four days to figure out how to be in a room with her and two other Alphas without losing my mind. Four days to remember how to use words instead of violence. Four days to become someone worth talking to.
The task felt impossible. It also felt like the first real thing I'd been asked to do since I came home from overseas.
I went back inside and started preparing for Thursday.
Chapter Nine
Artemis
Thursday arrived faster than I expected.
I spent most of the day stress-cleaning, which was ridiculous because my cabin was already clean and none of these Alphas had earned the right to judge my housekeeping. Still, I scrubbed the kitchen counters twice, rearranged my tarot decks three times, and changed my outfit four times before settling on jeans and a tank top that said I hadn't tried too hard.
Gumbo watched all of this from his spot in the shallows, his amber eyes tracking me every time I passed a window. Judgmental bastard.
"Don't look at me like that. I'm allowed to be nervous. Three Alphas are coming to my home. Three." I pointed at him through the screen door as I set out glasses and a bottle of whiskey on the porch table, my voice coming out sharper than I intended as I held up three fingers for emphasis.
He blinked slowly. Unimpressed.
"You're no help." I muttered under my breath, shaking my head as I turned back inside to check the time for the hundredth time, my bare feet padding against the worn wooden floor.
Six o'clock. I'd told them seven. One hour to go.
I poured myself a drink and took it out to the porch, settling into Marguerite's old rocking chair. The bayou stretched out before me, golden in the late afternoon light, Spanish moss swaying in the breeze. Somewhere in the distance, a heron called.
This was my home. My territory. Whatever happened tonight, that wouldn't change.
Harper arrived first.
I heard his truck before I saw it—a deep rumble that was nothing like my rattletrap engine. He pulled up to the edge of my property at exactly 6:45, because of course he was early, and sat in his truck for a full minute before getting out.
I watched him approach from my spot on the porch, whiskey in hand, not moving to greet him. Let him come to me. This was my territory. He walked like a man who knew his own strength and was careful with it. Broad shoulders, massive hands, those dark eyes fixed on me like I was the only thing in the world worth looking at. He was wearing a clean flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and he'd clearly made an effort—his dark hair was neatly combed, his jaw freshly shaved.
He stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, waiting. Asking permission without words.
"Come on up. You're early." I gestured to the chair beside me with my glass, keeping my voice neutral and my posture relaxed even as my pulse kicked up a notch at the way his scent drifted up to me—moonshine and cedar smoke curling through the humid evening air.
"Didn't want to be late. Didn’t know how long it would take. " He climbed the steps slowly, each one creaking underhis considerable weight, and lowered himself into the chair I'd indicated with the careful movements of a man who'd learned the hard way that furniture wasn't always built for someone his size. His hands came to rest on his thighs, fingers spread wide like he didn't know what to do with them, and I noticed the way his shoulders stayed tense despite his attempt at casual posture.
"You've been to my property before. Multiple times, apparently." I raised an eyebrow and took a deliberate sip of my whiskey, letting the words hang in the air between us, watching the way his jaw tightened at the accusation.
His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking beneath the skin. He didn't deny it.
"I brought this. 1958. My grandmother's favorite year." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle—amber liquid in hand-blown glass, the label written in that same spidery script I remembered from the brandy—and held it out like an offering, his massive hand dwarfing the delicate glass, his dark eyes fixed somewhere around my collarbone because he couldn't quite bring himself to meet my gaze.
