The tendons that shifted when he gripped the toolbox, the scar across his left knuckle from the sublevel fight, the veins that tracked from wrist to elbow.
My brain, still overheated from Percy, immediately pivoted to a fantasy involving Solomon’s hands and the counter in the back room.
Those fingers wrapped around a wrench with the same grip he’d used on my thighs the last time we’d been alone. The way he worked with his jaw set and his sleeves rolled to the elbow, sweat beading at his temple, completely focused, oblivious to the factthat his competence was the single most arousing thing I’d ever witnessed.
I wanted to walk into that back room and press myself against his spine and feel the vibration of his growl through my whole body when I put my mouth on the back of his neck.
Percy caught me looking and snorted. “Love, you’ve got it bad today.”
“I’ve got it bad every day. The babies have turned me into a hormonal disaster.”
“That’s not the babies. You were staring at Solomon’s arms before you were pregnant.”
He wasn’t wrong. I’d been staring at Solomon’s arms since the day he’d rebuilt the romance alcove and I’d stood in the doorway watching his hands work and lost approximately forty-five minutes of productive thought.
From the back room, the sound of a wrench against metal.
A grunt of effort that hit me right between my legs and made me grip the counter’s edge. Solomon fixing my plumbing the same way he’d used to plan military operations. It made me want to lock the bookshop door and test the structural integrity of every flat surface in this building.
“Where’s Lucian?” I asked, mostly to redirect my brain before it short-circuited entirely.
“Porch. With the raven.”
The Veyndral correspondence had become routine.
Farmon handling the freed lycans’ rehabilitation. The compound dismantled piece by piece, the creature that had been Thiago transported to a containment facility Solomon had designed the specifications for.
A kingdom running itself through birds while its king sat on a porch in a small mountain town.
I took my pancakes and stepped outside.
Lucian sat on the top step. The raven perched on the railing beside him, head tilted, making a low clicking sound that Lucian appeared to be listening to with genuine interest. His free hand rested near the bird. Not petting it. But close. Comfortable.
I stopped in the doorway.
This was the same man who’d spent months glaring at the council’s ravens with irritation. The man who’d once called them “winged rodents” whenever he thinks no one hears. Now he was sitting beside one in companionable silence, and unless I was hallucinating, he’d just offered it a piece of bread from his pocket.
The raven took it. Lucian’s mouth twitched.
“Are you two friends now?” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You just fed him.”
“Strategic alliance. He delivers faster when incentivized.”
“You named him, didn’t you?”
The pause told me everything. “Farmon named him. I simply use the name for efficiency.”
“What’s his name?”
“... Edgar.”
“You befriended a raven and named him Edgar. Lucian Valdris, king of Veyndral, has a bird friend called Edgar.”
“Farmon named him.” The tips of his ears went red. The raven clicked again, almost smug. “It’s a professional relationship.”
