“Survival habit.” I opened the menu, though I’d memorized it months ago. “The blueberry pancakes are better than the buttermilk.”
She studied me over the top of her own menu. Those eyes, unguarded in a way they hadn’t been before the claiming. The bond was loosening her. Opening doors she’d kept bolted for years.
“You know what’s weird?” she said.
“Many things.”
“I could feel him. Lucian. Not just emotions, it’s his presence. Right now, he’s annoyed about another raven. I could feel the irritation from here, and it’s a very specific irritation.”
My jaw loosened a fraction. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Will I feel you too? After?”
The question echoed in my mind and detonated quietly.
After.When I claimed her. When my teeth marked her throat and the bond completed another frequency and she carried my scent naturally the way she now carried Lucian’s.
“Yes,” I said. One word. It was all I trusted myself with.
She smiled. Not the bright, performative smile she used in public. The quieter one she saved for moments when she wasn’t trying. The one that undid me faster than any weapon in any arsenal I’d ever encountered.
The waitress arrived. Young, unfamiliar. This one was new, nervous, her eyes bouncing between Mira and me with the curiosity of someone who’d heard the rumors and was now confirming them in person.
We ordered. Mira got blueberry pancakes and a coffee with enough sugar to qualify as a dessert. I got black coffee and eggs. The waitress lingered a beat too long, her gaze snagging on the claiming mark visible above Mira’s collar, before retreating.
The murmuring started three seconds later. Low, scattered across the diner, the particular frequency of a small town processing new information in real time.
Mira heard it too. Her shoulders tightened, then deliberately released. She’d learned that move recently. The conscious decision to not fold inward, to take up space instead of shrinking.
“They’re staring,” she said.
“They’ve been staring since we walked in.”
“Is it the hair?”
“It’s you.” I held her gaze. “Without the mask.”
Color rose in her cheeks. She opened her mouth to respond, and then my senses spiked.
The feeling was instantaneous. Not a sound or a scent but an awareness, the back of my skull tingling the way it did in Veyndral when scouts reported enemy positions just beyond my perimeter.
I’d spent centuries trusting that instinct. It had never been wrong.
Someone was watching us.
It wasn’t the diner crowd, not the curious townspeople observing Mira’s transformation over their eggs and toast.
This was deliberate. The particular quality of surveillance conducted by someone who knew how to remain invisible.
My hand stilled on my coffee mug. I didn’t look toward the window or shifted my posture. Experience had taught me that the fastest way to lose a tail was to let them think they hadn’t been spotted.
“I need to check on the truck,” I said. “Left the window cracked.”
The lie was smooth. Mira glanced up, concern crossing her features that she quickly masked.
“Go. I’ll guard the pancakes.”
I slid out of the booth and walked toward the door with a measured pace. Casual, unhurried. The bell chimed behind me as I stepped into the parking lot.
