Chapter 20 #2
“No,” he said, and that was worse than if he’d told me it was, because unofficial meant nobody I could trace. “Some lawyer asking where you are these days. Whether you’re still living on the mountain. Whether anybody’s seen you around recently. If you live alone.”
My hackles rose. “They give a name?”
“No.”
“You tell them anything?”
“I told them retired captains aren’t my concern.” A beat, then, drier, “Which is mostly true. It could be nothing, but your guest…”
“I know. Are they pushing you for details?”
“Not hard.” He paused again, and I could picture him, leaning back in that chair that always squeaked, working out how much to say.
“Hard enough that I noticed.” My office felt too small suddenly, the walls too close.
“I don’t know who’s asking. I don’t know what they want.
Maybe it’s nothing, and it dies by tomorrow. ”
“And maybe it isn’t.”
“Either way, I’m keeping my eyes and ears open, and anything I see or hear I’ll pass up, but Cass, if you’ve got someone up there who maybe shouldn’t be there right now, I’d figure out a way to move them.”
“I can’t.”
“Can you tell me why? Are they injured?”
“No. To both of those questions.”
I heard a door close, and then his voice lowered. “You wanna keep things quiet up there, Cass. Okay? Keep that place locked down.”
“I do.”
“And if anything starts feeling wrong…”
“I’ll call.”
“You’d better.”
The connection went dead before I could say anything else, and I stood there another minute with the receiver still against my ear, listening to nothing.
Captain Cassian Raines. Not the house on the mountain, not a shipment, not some old debt calling itself in.
Me, by rank and name, which meant whoever was asking already knew exactly who they were looking for.
I ran a short perimeter check at speed, making sure to lock Soren and his baby in tight before I left, and all too soon I was home, happy the property was secure.
In the depths of winter this was Fort Knox, and I’d covered every base, but fuck…
the thought of someone coming for Soren made my wolf feral.
I headed back upstairs and climbed into bed with him again. Soren stirred. He brushed his nose against my neck as he surfaced from sleep, and when his eyes opened, his gaze found mine almost immediately. Confusion flickered across his face for a second before it softened into the smallest smile.
“You stayed.”
“I went out for patrol but came straight back.”
“Thank you.” His voice was rough, and he gave a tiny shake of his head as though he still couldn’t quite believe it. “I just… thought maybe I’d dreamed it.”
He didn’t move away. If anything, he relaxed further into me, and his whole body loosened in a way I’d never seen while he was awake. His cat was quiet, content, trusting us enough to sleep deeply, and that knowledge settled somewhere inside my chest with surprising force.
“I slept,” he whispered. “Thank you.”
Without thinking, I lifted a hand and brushed a loose strand of hair away from his forehead.
He leaned into the touch, his eyes drifting closed again, and my wolf gave a quiet, approving rumble.
The urge that followed wasn’t born of desire.
It came from somewhere gentler, from the need to show him that an alpha’s touch didn’t always demand something in return, that affection could exist without fear.
I hesitated long enough to give him every opportunity to pull away, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked back at me with complete trust, and before I could question myself again, I leaned forward and brushed my lips across his.
“You’re cold,” he whispered.
I kissed him again, and the kiss barely lasted a heartbeat. It was no more than a whisper of warmth before I drew back, but Soren didn’t flinch. He lifted his fingers to his mouth as though committing the feeling to memory, and I realized with a jolt that I didn’t regret kissing him.
That was the part I couldn’t make sense of.
I left to make breakfast.
But before I left, I brushed another kiss to his soft silver hair.
Soren was restless today. He couldn’t settle for long before he needed to shift position or rebuild part of the nest, and by lunchtime he’d apologized three times for being “fidgety,” as though carrying a baby wasn’t reason enough to be uncomfortable.
I told him to stop apologizing, but he kept doing it anyway.
We ate breakfast in the nest, and watched another episode of The Den. I teased Soren about Aldric because I knew it would earn me an eye roll. He smiled when he saw me do it, a proper smile that reached his eyes before another yawn caught him halfway through whatever he’d been about to say.
The kiss sat between us all day, and neither of us mentioned it.
I found myself checking on him when he wasn’t paying attention, wondering if he regretted it, whether he’d decided it had been a mistake brought on by exhaustion and fear.
Every time I started to ask, the words dried up.
What was I supposed to say? Sorry I kissed you?
The apology would have been a lie. Did you like it?
That felt unfair when he’d trusted me completely, and I shouldn’t have liked it as much as I did because Raff was my bondmate, not Soren.
So, I said nothing, and Soren seemed content to let the silence stay where it was.
My wolf wasn’t nearly as restrained.
Again, he murmured more than once.
“No.”
Gentle.
“I know.”
Again.
By the time evening came, I was arguing with him under my breath often enough that Soren gave me amused glances between yawns.
“Your wolf?”
“He thinks he’s always right.”
“And is he?”
“Sometimes.”
Soren laughed softly, the sound warming something inside me that had been cold for too long.