Footsteps approached the office.
I glanced up as Feral appeared in the doorway.
He looked different than I remembered. Mud splattered his boots, and there was a tiredness around his eyes I hadn’t seen before.
“Hello,” I said, returning my attention to the beaker in front of me.
Silence stretched out behind me.
I was aware of him standing there, watching as I adjusted the flame temperature beneath my cauldron and dictated a notation in my journal.
When I glanced back, he was studying my equipment.
“What,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet, “are you doing in my office?”
“Working.” I turned back to my experiment. “The room was unused.”
“It’s my space.”
“Wasyour space. The dust layer indicated no one had entered in so long there were mushrooms growing in the corners.”
His gaze shot toward the side wall. “There are no mushrooms growing here.”
“I needed a laboratory. The proximity to the bedroom is efficient. And you clearly weren’t using the room.”
His growl rumbled through his chest. “You don’t get to take what isn’t yours.”
“I didn’t take anything.” I gestured to the other section of the room, still untouched. “Your desk, your books, and your belongings are all exactly where you left them. I’ve simply made use of wasted space.”
“Wasted—” A pulse throbbed in his temple.
His arguments were falling apart because mine were airtight, and we both knew it.
That fact seemed to make him angrier.
He stalked across the room, closing the distance between us in three long strides to loom over me.
I looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. My enchanted pen still hovered in the air beside me, waiting to record whatever I might say next.
Frustration darkened his eyes, plus an emotion I couldn’t quite name. The air between us crackled with tension that had nothing to do with the office dispute.
“Yes?” I said.
His hands flexed at his sides. His chest rose and fell with barely controlled breathing.
And I waited, refusing to be the first to look away.
CHAPTER FIVE
FERAL
I’d spent three days chasing raiders along the eastern border. In between, I’d slept maybe four hours total. I’d eaten dried meat while crouched in mud, and dealt with territorial disputes that had taken every ounce of diplomatic restraint I possessed not to solve with my fangs and claws.
All I’d wanted when I climbed those hundred and four steps was to collapse into bed and sleep for twelve hours straight.
Instead, I stood in the doorway of my father’s office and stared at glass beakers, copper coils, and Victoria Thornwick Shadowpaw humming softly as she adjusted the flame beneath a small cauldron with her magic. Her rodent was snoozing in a basket on the windowsill.
I’d barely entered this room for thirteen years. Every time I tried, I saw him sitting at the desk. I heard his voice explaining territory markers and pack law. And I felt the weight of everything I’d lost when he died and left me alpha at nineteen.
