I wouldn’t start now.
“Just tell me when you know.” He moved toward the locker room door, already shifting into Captain Valdris, the cover identity he wore with increasing ease.
“You’ve been taking more shifts.”
He went still. His hand rested on the door frame, and the line of his shoulders tightened.
“Go home.” His voice flattened. “Get Percival here. It’s your rotation to guard her.”
“You came here to take a break from the crown.” I held my ground. “And instead you push yourself into new duties, more hours, more distance.”
His head turned. The glare he leveled at me would have dropped a lesser man to his knees. I’d been on the receiving end of it for centuries. It had stopped working on me somewhere around the second century.
I met his gaze. Alpha to alpha. Enforcer to king. The dynamic between us had always been different from the one he shared with Percy. Percy was loyal and more of a younger brother with unwavering devotion. I was the one who told Lucian the truth even when the truth drew blood.
“Stop being afraid of facing her.” My voice carried no judgment. Just fact. “Mira’s not going to disappear. She’s not going to forget again. We won’t let that happen.”
His eyes softened. Barely. A fracture so small that anyone else would have missed it. He still didn’t say a word. Just turned and walked through the door, and I let him go.
Some truths needed time to settle before a king could acknowledge them.
***
The drive home took twenty minutes.
I used every one of them to catalogue what I knew about the watchers from the bookshop visit, organize it, cross-reference it with everything I’d gathered on Hudson. By the time I pulled into the gravel drive, I had no new answers but a clearer picture of the gaps.
Percy met me at the door with his jacket already on. “Your turn. She’s in a mood.”
“What kind?”
“The kind where she wants to go out and I told her no and she called me a prison warden cerberus with dimples.” He grinned. “I took it as a compliment.”
I watched him jog toward his bike, and turned inside.
The cabin smelled of her, soaked into the furniture and the walls. My wolf instantly pressed against my ribs in recognition.
Home.She made this place smell permanent.
I found her in the kitchen, sitting on the counter with her arms crossed, a storm cloud in leggings and an oversized sweater. Lunchtime, and she most likely hadn’t eaten yet. Perhaps her mood stemmed from that too.
She tracked me as I moved to the fridge, pulled ingredients, and set a pan on the stove. My skin prickled under her attention. Every step I took, her gaze followed, and my body registered each second of it.
“Solomon.”
“Mira.”
“We need to talk.”
“About?”
“About how I seemed to be grounded these days.” She hopped off the counter and followed me as I moved between the fridge and the stove, staying close enough that her scent wrapped around me in waves. “We went out last time and it was fine.”
I set onions on the cutting board and began chopping. Focused on the blade. Not on the way her sweater had slipped off one shoulder, exposing the curve of her collarbone that I always had the urge to trace with my tongue.
“I just want to go out.” She was at my elbow now. Her hip brushed mine as she leaned against the counter. I could feel a jolt straight down to my spine. “Maybe eat at a diner. See people. Breathe air that doesn’t smell of testosterone.”
I moved the onions to the pan. Oil sizzled. So did the nerve endings along my left side where her warmth bled through my shirt.
