Chapter 19 Solomon #2
The two were closer now. All four of us were. I guess proximity to death did that.
Mira rolled her eyes at Lucian and changed the subject again. “What about temperature? Seasons?”
“Thermal Valleys,” Percy said. “Natural heat vents run beneath the kingdom. Keeps everything warm year-round. You could walk barefoot in the snow and still feel the ground pulse under your feet.”
Mira’s voice pitched higher. “Are you sure you didn’t just get this straight from a fantasy novel?”
“No other kingdom in Lytopia has geography quite the same,” Lucian added. “We got lucky with the territory we claimed.”
“Which is partly why we stayed isolated so long,” I said. “Hard to convince a kingdom to open its borders when it doesn’t need anything from the outside.”
“So basically, you’re telling me your kingdom is so self-sufficient and magnificent, far from this ordinary place, huh?” She gestured.
“Hey, our cabin is nice,” Percy said, mildly offended.
“I’m not saying the cabin itself. Just this world.
It wouldn’t beat a magical kingdom.” Her eyes were bright with interest. A different kind of brightness from the tears that had been there hours ago.
Better. “I assume you have a portal? Or a door here? So... How does crossing work? Is there a time difference?”
“Sort of. Hours in the Lytopia realm can be days here.”
Mira turned to Lucian. The question in her eyes carried weight. “Do you have books there?”
“We have libraries,” Lucian said. “Extensive ones. Magical books too.”
“Your kingdom sounds like a dream.” She laughed. “Can we trade worlds?”
Percy grinned. “You’d miss this so-called ordinary place.”
“I really wouldn’t.”
“We could take you.” Lucian said it before any of us expected it. “When this is over. When it’s safe. We could show you Veyndral.”
The room shifted. Percy’s grin widened. I glanced at Lucian. The barest raise of my eyebrow from surprise. He stopped shutting her out and even said the thing all three of us had been thinking but none of us had been reckless enough to voice.
Mira opened her mouth and closed it. She averted our eyes. Her fingers found the edge of Percy’s bandage and she peeled it back, studying the wound with sudden focus.
“It’s closing faster now,” she said. “The pink is fading.”
Another deflection. I recognized it immediately. She’d heard the invitation and everything it carried. The future, the permanence. The implicit assumption that she’d still be with us when this was over.
She wasn’t ready.
The silence that followed confirmed it. Four people in a room, all aware of the same unspoken thing, all choosing to let it sit untouched.
I stood from the window chair. “I’ll make lunch.”
The simplest exit I could offer. The conversation had reached its limit, and someone needed to release the pressure before it cracked.
“I’ll stay with Percy,” Mira said, already adjusting his blanket, tucking the edges around his chest with the focus of a woman who needed something useful to do with her hands. Percy’s eyes were drooping again, the storytelling having drained whatever energy the herbs had given back.
Lucian nodded and followed me downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I glanced at him.
“She didn’t say no,” I said because I knew he was spiraling again.
“She didn’t say anything,” he grits out.
“Exactly.” I turned toward the kitchen. “It means she didn’t say no.”
He watched me go, then disappeared into his office.
I made sandwiches and brought them upstairs. Mira ate with one hand resting on Percy’s blanket the entire time.
The day settled into quiet.
By late afternoon, the wound had sealed to a faint scar and Percy’s color had returned but he still needed sleep.
I could finally calm down a bit.
My body needed air and my mind needed space to think without walls pressing in so I went outside.
The porch was cold. The chill grounded me, heightened the edges that guilt and exhaustion had blurred. I sat on the top step and let the theories run.
There were pieces that didn’t click
Who was behind this? Someone who was definitely more skilled than Hudson.
And what did they want? What was this for?
I thought about factions who opposed Veyndral’s expansion as a possibility. Those who saw Lucian’s expedition as a provocation. But Lytopian enemies would have used Lytopian weapons. I should’ve been able to identify that dart.
The other option sat in my gut and refused to leave but I suppressed it.
No. That’s impossible.
For the sake of our kingdom, it has to be impossible.
Besides, I didn’t have enough data. Until then, theories were all I had, and I hated theories. I dealt with facts. Guessing made me feel exposed and useless.
The front door opened behind me.
“Getting fresh air too, huh?”
I turned. Mira stood in the doorway, a mug cradled between both hands.
She gave a small smile. “Percy’s asleep. Lucian kicked me out to shower, saying he’ll take watch, which is insulting.” She wrinkled her nose. “Do I smell?”
“No.”
“He basically implied it. So here I am. Figured I wouldn’t listen to him, as always.” She moved to the step beside me. “Staging a protest.”
“You’re free to share this guilt space.”
Mira smiled and sat. We both know that we blame ourselves for this.
She wrapped both hands around the mug, thumbs tracing the rim, and for a few minutes neither of us spoke. The quiet between us had always been easy.
From the beginning, before she knew what we were, she’d settled into my silence without trying to fill it. Most people couldn’t tolerate the absence of sound. Mira treated it the way I did. As its own kind of conversation.
“It’s not your fault,” I said.
Her thumbs stilled on the mug. “Yeah. Lucian kept telling me too.” A pause. “We even had a fight about it.”
The memory surfaced. The office door opening. Mira’s legs around Lucian’s waist. Books on the floor, his shirt destroyed. I’d filed it as irrelevant at the time because Percy’s wound had taken over my memories. But now, sitting beside her in the cold, the image returned with clarity.
“Didn’t look much of a fight to me,” I said.
“Hey.” She glared, but there was no heat behind it. Just embarrassment, mostly. “Come on, don’t remind me. I’m already drowning in guilt. I can’t believe we were making out in the other room and didn’t know his state.” She pressed her forehead against the mug. “I owe him so many apologies.”
“He won’t mind. It’s Percival. He’s the last one who will ever mind. And that’s one of your mate. It’s natural for us.” I let a beat pass. “It’s actually good you made progress with Lucian. About time.”
She lifted her head to stare at me.
“You two were the closest before you forgot us,” I said. “That’s why he was the most affected.”
The silence that followed was different. She hadn’t considered this. I could see the realization rearrange something behind her eyes, pieces clicking into a picture she hadn’t known was incomplete.
“The bond you say...” She sighed, staring into the mug. “Still struggling to get used to it.”
I reached over and took her hand. Squeezed once. “That’s understandable.”
Mira didn’t pull away. Her fingers curled around mine and stayed.
We sat. The quiet returned, familiar and uncomplicated, and I let it settle over both of us.
Her presence eased the weight in my chest in a way I hadn’t expected. The guilt was still there, rooted deep, but it had loosened. As if her proximity had reminded my body that not everything I was supposed to protect had been broken.
My wolf stirred. A low, instinctive pull that pushed my scent outward, warmly wrapping around her.
I didn’t choose it. Scenting was a response as natural as breathing, and fighting it would have been pointless. My body recognized hers, and wanted to soothe it. Wanted to claim the space around her as safe.
Mira shifted beside me. She exhaled, long and trembling, and her body softened against my side in a way that made my pulse thicken.
“What is that?” she murmured. “That feeling. The warm... settling thing.”
“Scenting,” I said. “Lycans release it instinctively around their mates. It calms the nervous system. Yours and mine.”
“So you’re basically drugging me with good vibes?”
“Essentially. If you want to put it that way.”
“Rude.” She leaned her head against my shoulder. “Don’t stop though.”
I didn’t.
The scent deepened. I couldn’t control the intensity any more than I could control my own heartbeat, and with her head on my shoulder, her hair brushing my jaw, the feedback loop between us tightened.
My scent calmed her, her calm fed back into me, and the cycle built on itself until every point of contact between us felt amplified.
Mira’s thumb had started tracing circles against my knuckle. Small, absent movements that I don’t think she was aware of, but I felt each one travel up my arm and settle in my chest. My breathing deepened to match hers.
Minutes passed and the sky dimmed. The mug’s steam faded as the chocolate cooled. She drank the last of it in a long pull, set the empty mug on the step, and stood. The absence of her warmth against my side registered as a physical loss.
My wolf protested. I told it to be quiet.
“I’ll check Percy again and finally take that shower.” She stretched her arms overhead, the dress I bought her riding up to expose a strip of skin. I looked away but looked back. “I think you’re too polite about my smell, big guy.”
“You can never smell bad for me.” I told her genuinely.
She smiled. “Good to know.”
Mira turned toward the door, reaching for the handle before she stopped.
“You know...” Her hand rested on the wood. She didn’t look back. “I would love to see Veyndral someday.”
The word settled in my chest and stayed even as the front door shut.
Someday.
I could wait for that day.