She sat down between Solomon and Percy, stealing a roll before the basket finished its rotation, and a shift settled over the cabin.
The four of us around a table with food and bickering and the smell of whatever Solomon had managed to salvage after yesterday’s burnt pot disaster.
I stood in the kitchen doorway and watched them.
My chest stopped aching painfully.
16
— • —
Mira
Ashvale loved a celebration.
The Lantern Festival had been about the harvest. Before that, apparently, there’d been a Spring Bake-Off, a Midsummer Bonfire, and an event called the Great Pie Dispute that people still took sides on.
Now it was Founder’s Day, the anniversary of whatever brave or foolish soul had looked at this patch of mountain wilderness and thought, “Yes, I’ll build a town here.”
The whole place buzzed with the kind of small-town energy that was equal parts charming and suffocating.
We were out picking up groceries and lunch.
The three of us. Me, Percy, and Solomon, because three lycan hunks apparently ate enough to feed a small army and the fridge needed restocking every four days.
Lucian was at the firehouse finalizing paperwork. Overtime logs and incident reports, he’d said. Or maybe he just wanted an excuse to avoid the festivities. Both options tracked.
The whispers started the moment we stepped out of the truck.
“...all three of them...”
“...living together, I heard...”
“...she’s not even that pretty...”
I kept my chin up. The gossip was old news by now.
The bookshop girl shacking up with the three firefighters had been Ashvale’s favorite topic for weeks, and the theories ranged from scandalous to absurd. Some people were kind about it. Most were curious. A few were openly hostile.
I found, with genuine surprise, that I didn’t care. Let them whisper or stare. I had bigger problems than small-town gossip, and smaller patience for it every day.
Outside the store, a familiar blonde head bobbed through the crowd and changed direction toward us.
Cateline.
She appeared at Percy’s elbow with the precision of a heat-seeking missile, all glossy hair and a smile aimed exclusively at him. “Percy! I didn’t know you were coming to Founder’s Day.We should grab a drink later, catch up. I was just telling my friends how funny you were at the last...”
Percy smiled at her, full dimples. The warm, open, genuine Percy smile that he gave to everyone because he was fundamentally incapable of being rude and my blood pressure spiked so fast I nearly cracked a molar.
She just never learns. And he just never notices.
Percy, annoyingly beautiful, oblivious Percy, treated her the same way he treated the elderly woman at the post office. Completely clueless that he was being hunted.
“He already has a date,” I cut in.
Cateline’s smile didn’t waver but her eyes did. They cut to me, recalculated, and returned to Percy. “Oh? Who?”
I stared at her and she stared back at me. The silence lasted exactly long enough to communicate everything neither of us was going to say out loud.
