“You’re not eating,” he observed, glancing up from his bowl.
“I’m watching you eat. It’s fascinating.”
“Fascinating?”
“I’ve never seen anyone eat that way before. Susan was always very concerned about table manners. Napkins in laps, small bites, careful chewing.” She gestured at him with her spoon. “You just... eat. Like you’re actually hungry. Like you’re enjoying it.”
“I am hungry. And I am enjoying it.”
He’s enjoying it.The words sent a warm flush through her chest. She ducked her head and focused on her own stew, though she’d already lost count of how many times she’d stirred the same spoonful without actually lifting it to her mouth.
Pip sat on the corner of the table, having claimed a small pile of vegetables that she had set aside for him. He’d been watching Baylin intensely throughout the meal, but his concentration had gradually faded as the food disappeared. Now he seemed more interested in a particularly stubborn piece of carrot than in their guest.
“Tell me about your pack,” she said suddenly. The question had been building in her mind since he’d mentioned communal meals. “What was it like? Living with other people?”
His hand paused halfway to the bread. Something that looked like pain flickered across his face before it was replaced by a careful neutrality.
“Complicated.”
“Everything interesting is complicated. That’s what makes it worth studying.”
“You want to study my pack?”
“I want to understand.” She set down her spoon, no longer pretending to eat. “I’ve read about social structures. Hierarchies and bonds and territorial behaviors. But reading about something isn’t the same as experiencing it. You’ve lived it. You know what it actually feels like.”
He was quiet for a moment, tearing another piece of bread into smaller pieces without eating them. “It feels like belonging,” hesaid finally. “Like having a place where you fit. Where people know you and accept you anyway.”
“That sounds...” She searched for the right word. “Safe.”
“It can be. When it’s working properly. When the alpha is strong and fair, when the hierarchy is respected, and when everyone understands their role.” His jaw tightened. “When it’s not working, it feels like a trap.”
“Is that why you left?”
The question hung in the air between them. She watched emotions move across his face and knew he was weighing how much to tell her and how much to hold back. She found herself leaning forward, drawn by the complexity of his expressions. So many subtle shifts, so many layers of meaning. Faces were endlessly fascinating.
His face is endlessly fascinating,she corrected herself. And then felt her cheeks warm at the thought.
“The pack I grew up in had a good alpha originally,” he said slowly. “But then his mate died and he eventually took a second mate. She conspired with one of the females in the pack to elevate her son and betray the son of the first mate. He left rather than see the pack tear itself apart, and asked me to stay behind. To protect the others while he was gone.” His hands stilled on the bread. “I did the best I could, but in the end, it was hopeless. I stayed too long, trying to fix what couldn’t be fixed. By the time I left, I’d lost some sense of myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I stopped knowing where I belonged. The pack wasn’t home anymore, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. So Istarted moving. Looking for something, though I couldn’t have told you what. Even after I was reunited with my friend, I couldn’t settle.”
“And that’s why you came looking for the tower.”
“That’s how I found the tower.” His eyes met hers, and something in their green depths made her breath catch. “How I found you.”
The silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt charged somehow, electric. She became acutely aware of the space between them—the width of the table, the distance she could cross if she just stood up and walked around to his side.
Why would I want to do that?
She knew why. She’d read about it in her books, the ones Susan had hidden and left behind. The ones she’d found anyway, hidden in the back of the library behind volumes on agricultural theory. Stories about men and women who felt drawn to each other. Who wanted to touch and be touched.
She’d thought she understood those stories. Now, sitting across from Baylin with her heart doing strange things in her chest, she realized she hadn’t understood anything at all.
“Your arm,” she heard herself say. “The scars. How did you get them?”
He glanced down at his arms, where a network of pale lines crossed his silver bronze skin. Some were thin and precise, others jagged and rough. A history written in damaged tissue.
