LARK
TWENTY-EIGHT
She pulled back. Looked up at him. The streetlight caught her face—the tear tracks, the smudged lipstick, the hazel eyes that were doing the thing they did when she was processing at high speed: green and amber in rapid alternation, like a traffic signal trying to decide.
“He’s working for Fallon.”
Not a question.
“I believe so.”
“So my ex-boyfriend hired your ex-pride member to intimidate me.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “This is the most dramatic breakup sequel in history. This needs a subtitle. Fallon Creed 2: The Grudge Match. Starring a lion.”
“Lark.”
She stopped. Pressed her hands to her face. She’d been to the den. She’d sat at the council table. She’d known. “I attended a Pride event in an emerald dress eating lamb and I still was not remotely prepared for this.”
“You were magnificent.” The words came out raw, unfiltered, stripped of every layer of composure he’d ever constructed.
“You walked into my Pride and you were magnificent and Yara gave you the single tap and my mother chose the Burgundy and none of it—none of it changes. I will not use my resources against you. I will use them with you. Now the resources include—” he gestured at himself.
Naked. Bleeding. Standing on broken stone with her jacket at his feet, “—this.”
She stared at him. The shaking had subsided.
The tears had dried. Her brain was catching up to her mouth and the processing was happening in real time—every tell she’d collected over seven weeks being recategorized, relabeled, refiled.
The hair. The growl. The stillness before movement.
The eyes catching light. Not a condition. Not a quirk. A species.
“Your mane really is ridiculous, by the way.”
“I’ve been told.”
“It’s like someone crossbred a shampoo commercial with a nature documentary.”
“That’s—surprisingly accurate.”
“I have notes. We’ll discuss them later.” She bent down. Picked up his jacket. What was left of it. Held up a single charcoal sleeve with three buttons still attached. “Do you want the remains of your suit, or should I call time of death?”
“The suit is not the priority.”
“The suit was Tom Ford, Rune. The suit is always a priority.” She shoved the sleeve into her bag. “I’m keeping this. Evidence.”
Headlights swept the street. A black SUV pulled to the curb with the silent efficiency of a vehicle that had been dispatched at speed.
The passenger door opened and Dekel stepped out—sandy hair, pale green eyes, the easy posture replaced by the alert readiness of a beta responding to his alpha’s roar.
He took in the scene: Rune, naked, bleeding, wearing nothing but a claw rake and a five-foot-six woman’s jacket draped across one shoulder. Lark, tear-streaked and laughing, holding a single suit sleeve. Shattered flagstone. A screaming car alarm. A tourist with a phone across the street.
“I see we’ve had a productive evening.”
“Kasper Eld.” Rune’s voice had dropped into the register that Lark was beginning to understand was the alpha register—not louder, but denser, the words carrying weight that had nothing to do with volume. “He’s in the city. Working for Creed. He came for Lark.”
Dekel’s easy expression vanished. “How long ago?”
“Seven minutes. He went east through the alley.”
Dekel was already on his phone, speaking Norwegian in clipped, rapid sentences. Two more vehicles appeared at the end of the block. Three men in dark clothing—Pride security, Lark realized, the phrase landing in her new vocabulary with a thud—deployed into the shadows.
Dekel hung up. Opened the SUV’s rear door. Produced a folded set of clothes from the back seat. “I keep emergency wardrobe in every vehicle. Because I have worked for you for years and I have learned.”
Rune took the clothes. Pulled on trousers with the stiff efficiency of a man whose dignity had been thoroughly dismantled and was being reconstructed from the foundation.
The shirt went on next—a henley, dark, slightly too casual for his usual standards but infinitely better than a size-small women’s jacket.
“The tourist got video.” Dekel nodded toward the far sidewalk, where the phone was still raised. “I’ll handle it. Shifter incident protocol. We have a response team for this.”
“You have a response team for public nudity?” Lark’s voice had found its rhythm again—the quick, observational cadence that meant her processing system was operational and her coping mechanisms were running at full capacity.
“We have a response team for unplanned shifts in civilian areas.” Dekel pocketed his phone. Looked at Lark. Then at Rune. Then back at Lark. “Welcome to the Pride, by the way.”
“I’ve been to a Pride dinner,” she said. “I still wasn’t ready for the sidewalk version.”
“Nobody is.” Dekel stepped aside. “You’re holding his suit sleeve like a trophy and you made jokes while he was naked and bleeding.
Close enough.” He gestured toward the backseat.
“Both of you. In. We’re going to the den, we’re going to debrief, and somebody is going to explain to me how Kasper Eld got within twenty feet of the alpha’s mate without my security perimeter catching it, because I am going to need a very large drink and a very detailed incident report. ”
Lark climbed into the SUV. Rune followed. The door closed. The car alarm finally died, replaced by the distant wail of a siren and the low hum of the engine.
In the back seat, separated by the center console but closer than they’d been in a week, Rune’s hand found hers. His fingers were scraped, blood-dried, still trembling with the adrenaline of the shift. She looked at their hands. Looked at him.
“You were going to show me the lion.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I was planning a controlled environment. The den. Burgundy. Dekel on standby.”
“You were going to wine-and-dine the lion reveal.”
“I was going to present the information in an appropriate setting with adequate support resources.”
“That is the most Rune Sterling sentence ever spoken.” She squeezed his hand.
Once. Then let go. “We’re not done being complicated, you and me.
The door and the wall and Fallon and all of it—that’s still there.
But you turned into a lion for me on a SoHo sidewalk and your mane was magnificent and I need you to know I saw it. ”
His hair stirred at the temples. Involuntary. Visible in the passing streetlights.
She noticed. Filed it under the new system. And didn’t say a word.
The SUV turned north toward the Upper East Side, carrying a bleeding alpha, a shaking heroine, and a single Tom Ford sleeve in a handbag, and the city swallowed the cracked sidewalk and the scattered suit and the memory of a roar that had rattled every window on the block.
In the front seat, Dekel texted Breezy.
Dekel: Your boss has seen the lion. She made four mane jokes in three minutes. She’s handling it.
Breezy: Adding ‘lion reveal, SoHo sidewalk, four mane jokes, one destroyed suit’ to the log. Requesting hazard pay, retroactive.
Dekel: Welcome to my world.