That was an absurd accusation from a man who communicated primarily through silence and meaningful stares. I was being strategic. Giving her space to process the lycan revelation, the mate bond, the fact that her life had become a supernatural disaster in under two weeks.
Or so I tell myself.
The fact that today I was the one assigned to guard duty, courtesy of a schedule change that had Solomon’s fingerprints all over it, was not lost on me.
A sudden tap against the window caught my attention. I turned from my desk and glared.
The raven sat on the windowsill with its chest puffed and its head cocked. Its eyes pulsed with a faint amber glow, the mark of a Veyndral messenger.
This one has been showing up lately. My mother’s doing.
I stood, crossed to the window, and didn’t open it.
The raven tapped again. Its amber eyes blinked at me through the glass.
I bared my canines. The raven’s feathers ruffled.
“Here’s my reply.” My voice came out low, dangerous. “Tell them that the next time they send you here, I will rip your wings off and roast you by the fire before I eat you.”
The raven squawked. Its eyes flared, recording the words the way it was bred to, and launched itself off the sill in a flurry of black feathers.
Perhaps a death threat would buy me another week before the next message about succession, heirs, and my mother’s increasingly creative guilt.
Everything tested my temper lately. I need to breathe.
I crossed to the office door, pulled it open, and was surprised by Mira standing on the other side.
She smiled at me. Sweet, bright. The kind of smile that made her mismatched eyes crinkle at the corners and punched a hole through every defense I’d constructed over five centuries.
My heart stuttered.Fucking traitor.
Then I registered the particular angle of her head, the calculated innocence in her expression, and every alarm in my body went off at once.
She was up to something.
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the door frame. “What do you need?”
“Is it me or do you look extra handsome today?”
I did my best to glare at her. “What do you need, Mira?”
She tilted her head, blinking at me with her fake innocence. “Can’t I just praise you?”
Oh she thought acting cute would work.
Well, it would.
But she didn’t need to know that.
I’d carved out an entire personality around not giving people leverage, and I was not about to hand this woman the keys to my complete undoing over a compliment and a flutter of eyelashes.
I flicked her forehead gently.
“I know you’re up to something. What is it?”
Mira frowned, rubbing her forehead. The innocence dissolved into the defiance I’d come to recognize as her default setting.
“Fine.” Her hands planted on her hips, looking up at me. It would have been intimidating if she weren’t a foot shorter. “I want to go to the upcoming town dance. Founder’s Day.”
