Chapter 33
Elodie
Iwoke up miserable the next morning, with no memory of anything past Valens blowing my mind on our way to the council building and drifting off shortly after.
He was still asleep in the bed next to me, and the sun was barely outlining the heavy curtains on the window of our borrowed room, so I snuck out of bed and into the shower. I ran it as cold as it would go, but still, my skin was hot and achy under the cold spray.
I was nearly out of time. Once I’d dried off and pulled my clothes out of the bag he’d placed in the bathroom for me last night, my anxiety was running as high as my temperature. We just needed to get through this mission, get the information the pack needed, and get out of here.
Easy-peasy lemon squeezy. Right?
When I walked out of the bathroom, I was unprepared for the glorious sight that awaited me.
Valens was awake, bare-chested, his golden-brown hair tousled, and one muscular arm curled behind his head against the headboard.
He gazed out the window, where he’d pulled back the curtains so we could see out over the lake behind us.
When his eyes met mine, he smiled, and the whole scene became that much more devastating.
He was pure masculine perfection, and I felt beyond inadequate in my maiden’s uniform, hair in a ponytail, and an achy mess.
“Hey, beautiful. Did you sleep well?”
“I—” I shook my head, more thrown off by the casual way he asked than anything. Is this who I was now? A woman who shared her bed with a fucking gorgeous alpha and made conversation with him before coffee while he showed off his impressive physique?
Because I’d never been that girl before. But damn if the view wasn’t better with Valens in my bed.
“I did, thank you. I don’t even remember getting up to the room,” I admitted, running a hand sheepishly over my uniform, straightening a nonexistent wrinkle.
He smiled softly. “I bet you don’t. You slept through the whole thing. I called Brielle because you were also running hot, but she said it’s fine as long as you’re not in pain. Also, I got some meds delivered that she said might help take the edge off.”
Valens stood, crossing the room to a table by the door, then proffered a pharmacy bag.
“I’ll pay you back. Just let me know how much it cost,” I murmured, accepting the bag as a lump rose in my throat. This man was taking care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself, without expectation or reservation.
And Goddess, I was scared to love him for it.
Scared to let him in for good. It was one thing to let him tear down my walls during sex; it was another to do it in the fresh light of day, when there were no excuses.
But I was no coward, Goddess damn it all, I was a warrior. And warriors didn’t hide.
His fingertips under my chin pulled me from my inner monologue. “You don’t need to pay me back. I’m happy to provide for you, whatever you need.” A teasing kiss on the lips, a soft stroke of my jaw, and then he disappeared into the bathroom, giving me time to process.
I read the labels and took the meds, chugging a whole bottle of water along with them. By the time he’d finished his shower and walked out of the bathroom dressed, I felt significantly better.
“You want to go to breakfast downstairs, or have them bring something up to the room?” he asked, pulling on a pair of leather boots.
“There’s a restaurant here?”
He straightened and nodded. “This is basically a fancy hotel with a limited guest list at the back of the council building, so they all have a home away from home. Lucien gave me the rundown. There are all the typical five-star amenities, including a spa, full-service restaurant, and in-house catering staff for room service. Apparently, council members expect a certain level of pampering while away from home. All complimentary, as part of their council compensation.”
I chuckled. “Wow. How the other half live, huh?” It was a far cry from my digs back home at the enclave, where I had a single bed and a single bathroom with sixty-year-old tile, and ate in a cafeteria with everyone I knew three bland and slightly burnt meals a day.
“Yep.”
“Breakfast downstairs sounds good. Maybe we can do some subtle observation while we’re down there, look for any clues to start us off before our council appointment.”
“Sounds good.” He offered his hand, and I took it, letting him lead us out of the room after passing me a key card for the room.
The restaurant downstairs looked like it would have at least three Michelin stars in the human world, with natural lighting and cozy seating, artfully arranged to create the illusion of privacy.
The illusion of privacy, because while there might be filmy decor separating the tables, you could hear every damn thing being said if you were paying attention.
The waiter was already at our table the second we sat down, pouring sparkling water into fancy blue glasses and leaving breakfast menus.
My eyes went wide as I surveyed the selection, there were multiple caviar choices, at least twelve varieties of crepes, right alongside the… less traditional menu options any supernatural might crave. I stopped reading at blood of a virgin under the liquid diet section.
At least there wasn’t infernabist on the menu. I shuddered as I remembered the nasty devil hogs we’d seen in Greece.
“Damn, they’ve even got a selection for carnivores of meats by the pound,” Valens murmured.
“Anything you could want, and then some.”
“And then some,” he agreed.
In the end, we ordered a simple breakfast of steak and eggs, with extra bacon. I blamed the meat cravings on my impending heat. Presumably, my body needed the extra iron.
“So, before we get tangled up in the mission, there’s something we should talk about,” Valens said, voice too careful to be casual.
“Oh?” I reached for my water glass to avoid having to say more. The bubbles in the water burned my nose. Water isn’t supposed to be carbonated.
He cleared his throat, leaning back in his chair as he studied me. “Have you thought about whether or not you want birth control for your heat?”
I froze, glancing around at the other scattered diners, who we could hear with our exceptional hearing, and who could, almost guaranteed, hear us too.
I gestured to the rest of the restaurant. “Are you sure you want to discuss this now?”
He shrugged. “We don’t know any of these people, and most other species find wolf heats uncouth. They won’t care and will probably tune us out on principle.” He lowered his voice. “If you ask me, it would be a damn good cover, even if it weren’t true.”
Valens winked, not the least bit concerned with discussing a topic others might shy away from.
This man, Goddess bless, but he was determined to subvert my every expectation of the male species.
“I already took care of it. I’m sorry, that’s probably something I should have told you sooner.
” I cleared my throat, glaring down into my weird bubble water.
“At the time, everything was new and we hadn’t discussed spending it together.
But as long as it happens in the next six months, there won’t be any pups. ”
I finally dared to look up and found mixed relief and surprise on his features. “You weren’t ready to be a parent either, huh? Well, it’s okay. You don’t have to be. I’m not asking for that, I promise.”
He shook his head as the waiter walked up and waited for him to place the delicious-smelling feast in front of us before continuing. I sawed off a piece of the juicy steak and took a bite before he spoke.
“It’s not that. I… Believe it or not, I’d be more than happy to have a pup with you.”
And I nearly choked on it. “Excuse me? Are you insane? We barely know each other!” I hissed, truly shocked that he was okay with the idea of having a baby with me already. Except… he wasn’t arguing. “Was there a but in there somewhere that I overlooked?”
He sighed. “But, I never imagined myself being a single father. I’d prefer to wait until we had a full mate bond.”
There it was, the other shoe. My career.
And damn it, I couldn’t even argue with him this time.
The more I thought about it, I didn’t even know what would happen to a child if I were still a maiden and the father wasn’t a bond mate.
Would they expect me to raise the child in the enclave, doom a daughter to my same future?
What if it was a boy? Would I have to give him to his father?
It was all a tangle of ugly thoughts, and I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
“Well, it’s not a problem. Neither one of us is ready for the next steps. Brielle assures me the birth control is effective, and who knows when I’ll have another heat. It could be a hundred years, and surely by then, we’ll have figured out what we want to do with the bond.”
He nodded, finally tucking into his own breakfast.
We ate in silence for a while, and eventually, my mind wandered back to the task at hand. A subject change was desperately needed, so I dove right in.
“So, how do we want to present the evidence? Have you got a plan in mind?”
He paused, lifting one eyebrow as if he were perplexed that I was done with the original topic already. But hey, avoidance was working for me so far, and I didn’t plan to stop anytime soon.
“We don’t want to mention anything out of the ordinary about your tracking skills, so I figured we’d leave that part out, about our suspicions around who we thought was doing it.
Lucien said most likely they would want to take the metal and examine it themselves for magical signatures, which is a good thing.
Independent evidence will go further to proving what we’re trying to. ”
I nodded. “Makes sense. Accusations would just cause a blow up.”
“Most likely.” He’d cleaned his plate, and the waiter appeared as if by magic. “Can I interest either of you in a cappuccino or perhaps an espresso?”
Valens looked my way and, at my nod, ordered us both a cappuccino.
“So, we bring the evidence, explain we’ve confirmed two missing supernaturals with signs of foul play, and then… we wait?”
He couldn’t hide his grimace at the idea of waiting, and I knew it was because my heat was coming like a freight train going too fast to stop before it decimated us both.
“We wait.”