Chapter 5
Zane
The seagull, fat and brazen, is still pecking at the croissant. Helena glares at the bird. I’m still grinning, but I hide it behind a sip of burnt coffee. That only makes her glare at me, too.
“I hope you’re enjoying this.” Helena smooths her hair fiercely.
I keep my voice level, as if we were in a briefing or a palace corridor and not sprawled in the weak Cornish sun.
“It’s the highlight of my week.” I instantly regret the word. The highlight of her week is supposed to be that she’s not in finishing school, or being hounded by her father’s staff, or prepping for another round of ‘meet a suitable packmate’ parties.
She shifts, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her blue dress is simple, nothing like the gossamer things her mother picks out for her, and it’s wrinkled from being sat on for hours. I doubt she minds.
I know I don’t.
I flick a glance at the horizon, the pale ribbon of it just visible over the heads of tourists and the sea wall. “You could go for a swim if you’d like. I’ll make sure the local wildlife doesn’t mug you again.”
She snorts. “A crab tried to pinch my toe off the last time I swam in the sea.”
“I’ll have a word with the crustaceans,” I say. “Professional courtesy.”
That gets her smiling. Helena, when she smiles, looks nothing like her father and everything like her mother. She shares her mother’s glacier-pale eyes and graceful way of inhabiting the world.
Helena stretches and rolls her shoulders. “You’re going to just sit there and do nothing while I swim, aren’t you?” Her tone is teasing, but the question’s real.
I set my coffee down and dig my hands into the sand. “Do you want me to join you?”
“Only if you don’t mind seagulls raiding your food while you’re distracted.”
“I can live with that.”
I follow her to the edge of the water, boots leaving deep impressions next to her bare feet.
She pulls off her blue dress to reveal a dark-blue bathing suit underneath.
She tosses the dress aside and then wades into the sea without hesitation, the kind of confidence that only comes from growing up with tutors who thought cold water was a personality builder.
I wait until she’s a few meters out—her hair loose and black and trailing behind her, arms slicing the waves in precise, efficient strokes.
The sea’s not warm, but it’s calmer than I remember.
I settle in at the border of wet and dry, the spot where the sand starts to cling, but your clothes don’t get soaked.
There’s a lifeguard at the far end of the beach, broad-shouldered, in a yellow shirt stretched tight over a barrel chest. A few families are building lopsided castles.
No one’s looking at Helena except me, but I make a show of being bored, head tilted to the sky.
It’s easy to let my mind drift. Seamuse Village always does that to me—slows the gears, lets them run quiet.
Most of my memories of this place belong to a childhood filled with summers, fresh honeycomb at breakfast, and my grandmother’s housecoat dragging in the garden.
When my parents left for the city, I stayed with them as long as I could, clinging to the little house with the crooked porch and the salt-stained windows.
I miss them more than I ever admit to anyone, least of all myself.
Helena splashes, treading water farther out.
I catch the scent of her—honey, even saltier in the sea air.
There’s a thread of familiarity to it, like bread fresh from the oven or the warmth of a new book.
I should be more careful. If her father had any idea how often she’d snuck away, or whom she was with, he’d have a new bodyguard flown in by helicopter, and I’d be shipped off to some distant relative with more influence and less patience.
But her father trusts me. More than that—he trusts only me. I’ve never figured out if it’s because he thinks I’m the least likely to make a move on his eldest daughter, or because he knows I’d give my own life before I let her come to harm. Maybe both.
I pull my knees up and stare at the lines the tide leaves behind.
The truth is, I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose lately.
The absurdity of being born into an ancient line of guardians, then finding that all the old threats are gone, and your only job is to make sure the new generation doesn’t embarrass the family.
Being a bodyguard with Ravenwood Shield Security is as close to meaningful work as anyone from my background gets.
I joined to keep people safe, but most days, it feels like I’m just shepherding spoiled heirs away from their own stupidity.
Then there’s Helena, the anomaly. She’s cleverer than most but never allowed to use it.
She went to Omega Finishing School and came back more confused than ever.
It’s like the curriculum had been designed to teach nothing except how to look pretty while being stifled.
The only time she seems alive is when she’s somehow outside the family sense of duty, and sometimes I let myself believe I help her feel alive too, thanks to a scent-match we’re not allowed to act on. Or announce.
She was on suppressants for the first year we worked together, and even after she stopped, the only thing that changed was that sometimes our hands lingered a beat too long when I helped her into a coat or a car.
There are rules about this. Strict ones.
The Starling family has centuries of protocol to prevent the possibility of some predatory alpha seducing their heiresses.
My own line is only slightly less neurotic.
If anyone found out I wanted her in ways that aren’t professional, I’d be out on my ass and she’d be locked in a tower or whatever the modern equivalent is. But all that’s academic.
Helena is my client, and I do not fail at the things I take seriously.
I’m so wrapped up in this train of thought that I don’t notice she’s no longer where she’s supposed to be. I scan the water. There’s a bobbing head—a swimmer, but not in the spot she was a minute ago.
I squint. It’s her. She’s farther out than before, and there’s a current running parallel to the shore. I push myself up, ignoring the sand stuck to my jeans, and walk down to the water’s edge.
A group of teenagers shriek past me, pelting each other with fistfuls of sand, and block my view for half a second. When they clear, she’s gone. Panic isn’t supposed to be a thing for alphas; it’s a liability. But my feet are already moving.
I jog along the shore, scanning the waves. I spot her—no, just an empty patch of foam. Then I see a hand, pale as moonlight, slicing up from the surface.
There’s a shout, and I realize it’s her voice.
She’s not joking.
She’s in trouble.