13. Anouk
THIRTEEN
ANOUK
“Talk to us.” Sakura’s voice is soft, kind. “For real. Not the political version. Not the ‘everything’s fine’ version. The actual version.”
Another emergency Girls’ Night has been declared in my back room. Declared not by me, of course. I take a breath. Let it out slowly.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
“What was it supposed to look like?” Leire leans forward, her sharp eyes intent.
“I don’t know. Private, maybe. Controlled. Something I could manage on my own terms instead of—” I gesture vaguely at the air. “Instead of exploding in front of the entire coven because Cordelia called me entangled.”
“She did more than that.” Sakura’s usually sunny expression hardens. “She accused you of being compromised. Of being unable to lead. That’s not just political maneuvering—that’s an attack.”
“And your magic defended you.” Leire’s smile is fierce. “Defended both of you. The claiming wasn’t a mistake or a lapse in control. It was your power doing what you’ve been refusing to let yourself do.”
“Claim a wolf alpha?”
“Admit you want him.” Her voice softens. “Admitting you want anything at all.”
The words land somewhere beneath my ribs. I’ve spent so long pretending I don’t want things—don’t need things, don’t feel things—that actually having them feels like stepping off a cliff.
Caius catches me. That’s what the claiming proved. Whatever happens next, he catches me.
“Different.” The word comes out rough.
“We know what it feels like, that first morning after. And we’re not here to tease you. We’re here because we need to figure out what Cordelia does next.”
The conversation shifts, as Girls’ Night conversations always do.
Sakura shares updates about Radiant Aura Studio—business is booming since her claiming with Torin, apparently because couples want energy readings from someone who “understands matters of the heart.” Leire reports that Whisperwind Charms has started selling claiming celebration packages, complete with commemorative crystals and mood-enhancing candles.
Zeph admits her brewing has been more stable lately, though she can’t figure out why.
“Maybe you’re at last processing the loss of your familiar,” Sakura suggests gently.
“Maybe. Or maybe my magic is just bored and looking for new ways to cause chaos.” Zeph shrugs. “Either way, the beer’s been excellent. Fewer explosive side effects.”
“That’s a low bar.”
“It’s progress.”
The wine flows. The conversation meanders. For a few precious moments, I almost forget about the political crisis waiting outside my door.
Then Leire’s expression sharpens, and I know the easy part of the evening is over.
“We need to talk about Cordelia.”
The name drops into the comfortable atmosphere like a stone into still water.
“She’s not going to stop.” I set down my untouched glass. “The vote failed, but barely. She’ll try again.”
“She’ll escalate.” Leire’s voice carries the tactical edge that made her such a formidable opponent when she and Aslan were still enemies. “The claiming threatens everything she believes. Everything the Preservers have spent centuries protecting. She can’t let it stand.”
“Then we use that.” Sakura surprises me—her optimistic nature rarely extends to strategic planning. “If she’s going to escalate, we let her. Give her enough rope to hang herself.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Make her think she’s winning.” Sakura’s eyes are sharp beneath their usual warmth. “Let her believe you’re vulnerable, distracted, too caught up in your new claiming to pay attention to the investigation. See how far she’ll go when she thinks no one’s watching.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“Everything about this is dangerous.” Leire leans forward. “We’re not going to catch her by playing it safe.”
I consider the options. The council vote was close—too close. Cordelia has allies, supporters, people who genuinely believe her traditionalist rhetoric. If I push too hard, too fast, I could lose everything.
But if I don’t push at all, she’ll keep killing people who get too close to the truth.
“We need proof.” My voice comes out hard. “Physical evidence linking her to Mathilda’s death. Without that, it’s just accusations.”
“The journals might have something.” Sakura’s brow furrows. “Mathilda was documenting everything she discovered. If she suspected Cordelia—”
“She would have been careful.” I remember the burned fragments, the destroyed records, the systematic elimination of anything that might expose the Preservers.
“Cordelia’s been doing this for decades.
She knows how to cover her tracks. Is there someone who has been around as long as she has that we completely trust? ”
“The dragon,” I say. The words sit heavily between us. “Chione. Grandmother Sylvana said she was there when it happened. If anyone can give us the truth—”
I already know what I need to know. The charm Grandmother Peach pressed into my hand several days ago sits in my pocket like an answer I haven’t quite figured out the question to yet. Her words return to me: “Trust the mountain, and the wolf can help. If you let him.”
My friends leave with hugs and promises and pointed suggestions I refuse to acknowledge.
“Call us tomorrow,” Leire demands, pressing a final glass of wine into my hands. “Or don’t call us. Either way, we’ll know exactly what happened based on how smug you look at the next council meeting.”
“I don’t look smug.”
“You will.” Her grin is wicked. “Trust me.”
Sakura squeezes my hand. “It’s going to be okay. Whatever happens with Cordelia, with the dragon, with all of it—you’re not alone anymore. That matters.”
“It does.” The words come out rough.
Zeph leaves the basket of questionable beer ingredients with detailed instructions I promise to ignore. “The flexibility one is third from the left. Just in case.”
They file out into the evening, their laughter echoing down the cobblestone street. I watch until they turn the corner, until the sound fades, until I’m standing alone in my apothecary with Grandmother Peach’s charm warm in my pocket and anticipation coiling in my chest.
He’s waiting. She said he’s been waiting.
I don’t have to sense him to know it’s true. But I sense him anyway—a point of heat at the edge of my awareness, closer than pack territory, closer than The Den. He’s somewhere nearby, giving me space while my friends descended with their wine and wisdom.
Waiting. Like he always waits.
I open the door before he can knock.
Caius stands on my threshold, the evening light catching the planes of his face, the silver threading through his dark hair. He’s changed since this morning—different clothes, evidence of a shower, a deliberate preparation that suggests he’s thought about this moment.
“Grandmother Peach says we can now find the dragon.”
He steps inside without being invited, his presence filling the space the way it always does. “The cave she means—it’s in pack territory, deep in the mountains. I’ve heard stories about it since I was a pup.”
“Stories?”
“That the mountain itself guards the entrance. That the path changes for those who aren’t meant to find it.” He moves closer, and I let him, let his heat wash over me like a tide. “That a dragon sleeps there, waiting for questions no one has thought to ask.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale.”
“Fairy tales have to start somewhere.” His hand finds my hip, anchoring us both. “It’s not an easy journey. The terrain is rough, the magic is old, and we don’t know what Cordelia might try while we’re gone.”
“She’ll definitely try something.”
“She’s desperate.” His thumb traces circles against my side, distracting and deliberate. “Desperate people make mistakes. We just have to survive long enough to capitalize on them.”
“Optimistic.”
“Practical.” But he’s smiling—that rare expression that transforms his face into something almost soft. “We’ll need to leave soon. Tomorrow, ideally. Before she has time to position her agents.”
I let the word settle between us. “That doesn’t leave much time.”
“No.” His other hand comes up, cupping my face with gentle fingers. “It doesn’t.”
The air between us shifts. Charges. The claiming marks on both our bodies pulse with answering heat.
“Tonight,” I hear myself say, “isn’t for planning.”
“No?”
“Tonight is for us.” I step closer, pressing against him with intention I’ve stopped trying to hide. “Before everything gets complicated again. Before dragons and conspiracies and political crises. Just… us.”
His eyes darken. The restraint I’ve watched him maintain visibly cracks.
“Anouk.” My name is a rasp in his throat. “If you’re sure—”
“I want you.”
He kisses me.
It’s not like the kisses before—tender explorations, careful promises, restrained wanting. This is fire. This is hunger. Years of denial given permission to burn.
His hands are everywhere—my back, my hips, threading through my hair to send pins scattering across the floor. I match his urgency with my own, yanking his shirt free, mapping the planes of his chest, learning the texture of his skin.
I don’t care about anything except the feel of him, the taste of him, the way he groans against my mouth when I find a sensitive spot beneath his jaw.
We make it to the small sofa—barely. He lifts me like I weigh nothing, like carrying me is as natural as breathing, and then I’m on my back with his weight pressing me into the cushions and his mouth trailing fire down my throat.
“The claiming mark.” His voice is rough, wrecked. “Can I—”
“Yes.”
His lips find the spiral pattern on my shoulder. The sensation is—
I can’t describe it. Electric and intimate and claiming in ways that go beyond the physical. My back arches. My magic surges. The entire apothecary hums with power that doesn’t know how to contain itself.
His answering mark pulses against my palm when I press my hand to his chest. Two halves of the same pattern, responding to each other, binding us in ways I’m only beginning to understand.
“More.” The word tears out of me. “Caius—”
He gives me more.
We don’t talk about tomorrow. Don’t discuss dragons or elders or centuries-old conspiracies. The world outside my apothecary can wait—will have to wait—because right now there’s only this.
His hands. His mouth. The way he says my name like it’s a prayer.
The way I say his like it’s an answer.
Inside, the herbs have arranged themselves into shapes that would make Zeph’s pamphlets blush.
We stay tangled on that sofa until the candles burn low, learning each other’s rhythms, pulling apart and reuniting, refusing to let the night end.