Her voice was composed. Polished. But there was something beneath it—an unfamiliar thread of strain.
“Hi, Mom.”
Silence flickered across the line.
“I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how to use your phone,” she said lightly.
There it was. The practiced tone. The half-joke that masked accusation.
“I’ve been working,” I replied evenly. “The summit ran longer than expected.”
“In the woods?” she asked.
My gaze lifted instinctively, catching Cassian’s. He didn’t move. Didn’t react.
But he was listening.
“Yes,” I said. “Upstate.”
Another pause.
“I suspected,” she said carefully, “that you weren’t alone.”
There it was.
The opening.
I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, but my voice stayed steady.
“I’m not,” I said.
The honesty surprised even me.
On the other end of the line, her breath shifted—just slightly.
“Lia,” she began, and something in her tone softened, thinned, as though she were stepping onto unfamiliar ground. “You need to be careful.”
“Of what?” I asked.
“Of men who don’t live by the same rules you do.”
My gaze held Cassian’s.
“He does live by rules,” I said quietly.
“They just aren’t yours.”
Silence pressed in around me. The kitchen felt smaller. Warmer.
“He hunts,” she said.
The word landed heavier coming from her.
“Yes,” I replied.
“And you’ve made a career out of condemning that.”
“I’ve made a career out of condemning cruelty,” I corrected.
