“He’s going to expect this every time.”
“Everytime?” His mouth curved into something that might’ve been a smirk. “Planning ahead, are we?”
My face overheated. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Sure it wasn’t.”
I considered arguing but decided against it.
My limbs felt heavy, pleasantly exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion and everything to do with emotional exposure I wasn’t quite ready to examine yet.
My enchanted pen lifted off the nightstand without being summoned. It floated over to my notebook, opened to a fresh page, and began to write.
I should’ve let it record whatever observations it deemed significant without my input.
I watched instead.
The pen moved in my handwriting:Variable: irreversible. No corrective action desired.
The words sat on the page, impossible to unsee or unwrite.
I closed the notebook with a quick spell and sent it to the bathing chamber, shutting the door behind it.
I’d spent my entire life cataloging things I wanted to understand. Documenting phenomena, analyzing patterns, and building frameworks to make sense of complexity.
This was the first time I’d found something I simply wanted to keep. The admission settled in my chest, terrifying in its simplicity.
Feral’s breathing had already evened out into sleep. He was completely unaware he’d just permanently disrupted my research schedule.
Good, I thought. Serves me right.
I listened to him breathe, memorizing the weight of his arm and the warmth of his skin. The bond hummed between us.
It was my own fault for thinking I could approach this like any other experiment. There was no way I could maintain clinical distance from a wolf king who filled my needs before I anticipated them. Who carried me up one hundred and four steps without breaking stride. Who looked at me like I was an entire territory worth defending.
I’d been wrong about manageable. About strategic too. There was no way to keep this simple and contained.
I was probably wrong about a lot of things.
But lying in the dark with Feral and the bond singing quietly in my chest, I found I didn’t particularly care about being wrong.
Some variables were worth the disruption.
CHAPTER TWENTY
VICTORIA
Isat at my worktable, surrounded by samples and notes that had been there since yesterday. A half-eaten pastry waited on a plate beside me. Feral had brought it up from the kitchen a short time ago, along with tea that I’d spelled to remain piping hot. I picked up the pastry and took another bite without really tasting it, my attention already drifting.
The flowers caught my eye again. Fresh ones in the urn this morning, their stems submerged in water. He’d remembered since the first day. I’d noticed it when he brought them and kept noticing it every few minutes since, like my brain wanted to register the fact as significant.
Wild honeysuckle and late-blooming columbine. The same combination as yesterday, which meant he’d gone to the same area to pick them. He was establishing a pattern. Creating a routine around bringing me flowers that wouldn’t die by midday.
I noted it the way I noted everything significant and then sat very still with the weight of what that meant.
I also couldn’t stop thinking about last night. The warmth of his hands. The way he’d looked at me. The bond flaring bright enough to leave afterimages behind my eyelids.
The headboard hitting the wall. The sword falling. His reflexes catching it without breaking rhythm.
