Luca had come by the office earlier that week. Walked in, looked at me, stopped in the doorway.
“What?” I’d said.
“You’re smiling. Can see teeth. Didn’t know you had those.”
“Get out.”
“She’s good for you, Finn. Whatever this is, keep it.” He’d leaned against the door frame and his voice shifted. Quieter. “But the council’s been asking about your schedule. You’ve missed two briefings this month.”
I’d started to respond but he kept going.
“And Lorraine cornered a junior beta at the pack hall last week. Told the girl she was the incoming Luna, demanded to approve all social events going forward.”
My jaw had tightened. “She what?”
“You heard me. Walking around giving orders like she’s already got the title.”
“She doesn’t have shit. She’s not Luna, she’s not anything close to it.”
“I know that. You know that. But she’s saying it loud enough that people are starting to wonder whether it’s true.”
I’d told him I’d handle it. He’d given me the look. Same one he’d been giving for months, the one meaningwhen?
When. That was the question I kept dodging. When the hell was I going to tell the pack about Andrea? When was I going to shut Lorraine down publicly instead of just privately? When was I going to stop hiding the best damn thing in my life like it was a liability?
Now Andrea was asleep on my shoulder and the weight of that conversation pressed against my chest alongside her hand. My mother had called twice this week. I didn’t pick up either time. Lorraine was getting bolder. The pack didn’t know about Andrea. Nobody knew except Luca.
I should tell her. About all of it: Lorraine claiming a title that wasn’t hers, Margaret’s pressure, the politics piling up while I sat here pretending nothing existed outside this, us. She deserved to know what she was walking into, deserved the truth, all of it, not just the parts that were easy.
She shifted in her sleep. Her fingers curled tighter against my shirt. I could feel her heartbeat through the fabric, slow and trusting.
Shit.
Not tonight. Tonight she read to me, fell asleep against me, my wolf was quiet. Everything was good. I was going to hold onto that for as long as I could, even though I knew the longer I held on the harder the fall would be.
I pressed my mouth against her hair and closed my eyes.
Not yet.
15
— • —
Andrea
“Bring a bag tomorrow,” Finneas said at the end of the day, casual, like inviting me to stay at his place was the same as asking me to print a report.
So the next morning I packed a toothbrush, pajamas I knew I wouldn’t wear, and the highland romance because I was mid-chapter. Shoved everything into a tote bag and brought it to work and spent the entire day with it sitting under my desk while I pretended I wasn’t nervous about the fact that I was going to his house for the first time. He’d always come to mine. My house, my couch, my bed. His territory was new ground and my stomach was doing flips that I refused to acknowledge.
He drove me there after work.
The estate was absurd. I knew he had money, obviously, the man owned a company and ran a pack, but knowing it and seeing itwere two different things. The driveway alone was longer than my entire street. Inside was all high ceilings and dark wood and rooms that kept opening into more rooms like the house didn’t know when to stop.
“Your kitchen is the size of my living room,” I said, trailing behind him down a hallway. “Possibly two of my living room. How many people live here?”
“Just me.”
“Just you. In a house with what, fifteen rooms?”
