24. Lynn
— ? —
Lynn
The gates don’t open.
I stand there in the darkness, my hand still raised from knocking, and nothing happens. No creak of hinges, no rush of guards, no sign that anyone inside has noticed me at all.
Maybe they can’t hear me. Maybe the gates are too thick. Maybe I need to-
“Human.”
The voice comes from above.
I look up and nearly fall backward. There’s a man perched on top of the gate, just sitting there, like it’s a park bench, watching me with eyes that catch the moonlight wrong.
“Um. Hi.”
“You knocked.”
He tilts his head, studying me with the frank, unhurried attention of a predator deciding I’m not prey.
“I did.”
“On the gates of the lycan king’s compound.”
“That’s… correct.”
He tilts his head, studying me like I’m a particularly confusing math problem. “Why?”
“Because walking through seemed rude?”
His expression flickers. Surprise, maybe. Or amusement. “You’re the human. The professor’s human.”
“I’m Lynn.” I clutch Mr. Darcy’s carrier a little tighter. “Is Milo - is the king here? I need to speak with him.”
The man doesn’t answer. Instead, he disappears, literally just gone, one moment there and the next not, and then the gates are swinging open with a groan of ancient metal.
I step through.
And stop.
There are people everywhere.
Torchlight flickers across their faces, and every one of them looks carved from stone.
Every single one of them is staring at me.
“Oh,” I say softly. “Okay.”
The silence is deafening.
I’ve never been in a room, an area, so completely, oppressively quiet. Even the wind seems to have stopped. The torches have gone quiet. It’s just me and Mr. Darcy and a hundred supernatural beings who are looking at me like I’ve personally insulted their ancestors.
Walk, I tell myself. Just walk. One foot in front of the other. You’ve done this before.
I haven’t done this before. I’ve never done anything remotely like this before.
But I start walking anyway.
The path stretches ahead of me, lined on both sides by beautiful, unfriendly faces. No one speaks or moves. They just watch, their eyes tracking my progress with an intensity that makes my skin crawl.
They know who I am.
The realization drops through me, cold and total. These people, all of them, they know exactly who I am.
And they’re making their feelings about it very clear.
A woman near the front curls her lip as I pass. A man actually turns his back, the gesture so deliberately dismissive that I stumble.
Keep walking, keep walking. Keep-
“Miss Crowe.”
Two guards appear at my sides. They’re enormous, easily seven feet tall, built like mountains, and their faces are completely blank.
“The council is in session,” one of them says. “We’ll escort you.”
“Escort me where?”
“To wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Neither of them answers.
They flank me as we continue down the path, and the crowd parts ahead of us with the same eerie silence. I can feel eyes on my back, burning into my skin, and I have to actively stop myself from running.
This was a mistake.
The thought is loud and absolutely certain. I shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t have come, should have waited for Milo to contact me, should have trusted that he had reasons, should have-
“LYNN!”
The shout cuts through the silence and every head turns.
I spin around, and there’s a woman pushing through the crowd, actually shoving people aside, her movements frantic, and she’s running, running toward me, her face twisted with something that looks like-
Joy?
She reaches me before the guards can react. Her hands come up to cup my face, tilting it toward the torchlight, and her eyes are searching mine with an intensity that steals my breath.
“It’s you,” she breathes. “It’s really you. Oh, sweetheart.”
And then she’s hugging me.
I stand there, frozen, this stranger’s arms wrapped around me, her body shaking with what I slowly realize are sobs.
“Um,” I say eloquently.
“Mother.” Another voice, younger, sharper. “You’re scaring her.”
The woman pulls back, wiping her eyes, and I get my first real look at her.
She’s beautiful. Elegant in a way that suggests she was born that way, with dark hair streaked with silver and eyes that are achingly familiar. The same deep green, the same warmth hiding something deeper.
Milo’s eyes.
“You’re his mother,” I say.
“Genevieve Draven.” She takes my hands in hers, squeezing tight. “And you’re the girl who brought my son back to life.”
“I - what?”
“I’m Isla.” The younger woman steps forward, and she’s beautiful too, dark hair, sharp features, the same familial bone structure. “His sister. The one who interrogated you on the phone.”
“Oh.” I blink at her. “That was… thorough.”
“I’m very protective.” She grins, and suddenly she looks much less intimidating. “Also, I called it. I knew you were special the moment I heard your voice.”
“You said I sounded ‘adequate.’”
“That’s my highest compliment.”
Genevieve is still holding my hands, gripping them so tightly it’s clear she’s afraid I’ll dissolve if she lets go. The tears are flowing freely now, and she doesn’t seem to care that half the compound is watching.
“Milo talks about you,” she says. “Every time he visits. Every phone call. Lynn said this, Lynn did that, Lynn made me laugh-” Her voice breaks. “He’s been so dark since his father died. Gray. Going through the motions like a ghost. But lately…”
“Lately he’s been unbearable,” Isla finishes. “In a good way. He smiles now. He laughs. He sends me texts about hamsters.”
“Mr. Darcy,” I say automatically, lifting the carrier.
“Oh!” Isla peers at the carrier with genuine delight. “He’s adorable. Milo showed me pictures. He’s obsessed with that hamster.”
“The hamster tolerates him at best.”
“Even better.”
Genevieve squeezes my hands again. “You need to understand something. When my husband died - when the crown passed to Milo - I thought I’d lost both of them. The light went out of my boy’s eyes. He became someone I didn’t recognize. Someone cold, and careful, and so tired.”
“The pack needed leadership,” Isla says quietly. “The council was circling. There was no time to grieve.”
“And then he met you.” Genevieve’s smile is trembling. “And every time he comes back from that college, he’s shining. He’s my boy again. He’s happy.”
The words rearrange something in my chest.
I’ve spent twenty-four hours convincing myself I was convenient. A box to check. A willing human woman for some ritual I don’t understand.
But these women, his family, they’re looking at me like I’m a miracle.
“Thank you,” Genevieve says, and the words are weighted with something I can’t name. “Thank you for bringing him back to life.”
My eyes are burning. “I didn’t do anything. He’s the one who-”
“You did everything.” She cups my face again, her thumbs brushing my cheeks. “You loved him. That’s everything.”
I don’t know what to say, or how to handle this, the gratitude, the warmth, the complete opposite of the arctic welcome I received at the gates.
So I say the only thing I can think of.
“Where is he?”
Genevieve and Isla exchange a look.
“The council,” Isla says carefully. “They called an emergency session. They’ve been keeping him in that chamber for-”
“Days,” I finish. “That’s why he couldn’t respond. That’s why he’s been gone.”
“They’re trying to block you from the ritual. They’re trying to-” Isla stops, glancing at her mother.
“They’re trying to challenge his right to choose,” Genevieve says quietly. “His right to have you.”
“And the ritual’s tomorrow night,” Isla adds, and my stomach drops. “The moon won’t wait for the council to finish arguing. Whatever they’re going to do, they have to do it before moonrise.”
Tomorrow. I crossed a state on a bus and half a forest on foot, and I got here with a day to spare.
Something hot and fierce blooms in my chest.
“Take me to him.”
They take me to him. The great hall is exactly as imposing as I remember.
Massive stone walls. Vaulted ceilings lost in shadow. Torches casting flickering light across surfaces that seem designed to make humans feel small.
I feel small.
But I keep walking.
Genevieve and Isla flank me as we approach the enormous doors. The guards stationed there look like they want to stop us, but a single glare from Genevieve sends them stepping aside.
“Ready?” Isla murmurs.
“Absolutely not.”
“Perfect. Let’s go.”
She pushes the doors open.
The chamber beyond is vast and circular, with a table at its center and seven raised chairs along the perimeter. The elders, I realize. The council. And at the head of the table, standing with his back to the door, mid-argument-
Milo.
His voice is sharp and commanding, nothing like the gentle warmth I’m used to.
“The goddess made a mistake!” An older man, face like carved stone. “You expect us to believe-”
“I expect you to respect the sacred bond that-”
The doors finish opening with a groan.
Every head in the room turns.
And Milo sees me.
His face transforms, breaking into an expression I’ve never seen on him before, in any context. It’s like watching the sun come up, slow at first, then all at once.
Hope.
That’s what it is.
He looks at me like I’m hope personified.
And I, five-foot-nothing, carrying a hamster under one arm, wearing jeans and a sweater and absolutely zero lycan-appropriate attire, walk into a room built to intimidate gods.
“Hi,” I say. My voice echoes off the stone walls. “I heard I’m being annulled? I’d like to speak to whoever wrote that motion.”
Chaos.
The elders are on their feet, shouting-
“How dare she-”
“This is a private session-”
“The human has no right to-”
“Absolutely unacceptable-”
“SILENCE.”
Milo’s voice cuts through the noise like thunder.
The room goes quiet.
He’s changed, I realize. Shifted, somehow, not fully, but enough. His eyes are glowing that strange amber, and his presence has expanded to fill every corner of the chamber. He looks like a king and a predator at once.
And he looks like mine.
“If anyone,” he says, and his voice is barely contained violence, “looks at her wrong, I’ll remove their head from their body. Personally.”
“Milo-” the stone-faced elder starts.
“This session is over.” He stalks around the table, his eyes never leaving mine. “Everyone out. Now.”
“You can’t just-”
“OUT.”
The command is absolute. Final. Utterly without room for negotiation.
The elders leave.
They file past me one by one, their faces ranging from furious to calculating to, in one case, almost amused. The guards leave. Genevieve gives my shoulder a squeeze, and then she and Isla are gone too.
The doors close behind them.
And then it’s just us.
Milo stands frozen at the far end of the chamber, his chest heaving, his eyes still glowing. He looks feral. Barely contained. Like he’s one wrong word away from losing whatever control he’s holding onto.
“Lynn,” he says, and my name in his mouth comes out reverent, almost undone.
“You left me a note.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I had to-”
“You left me a note, Milo.”
“I know.” He moves toward me, each step deliberate. “I know. It was wrong. I should have woken you. I should have explained. I should have-”
“You should have trusted me.”
“I do trust you.”
“Then why did I have to find out you were missing from a substitute teacher? Why did I have to spend twenty-four hours thinking-” My voice cracks. “Thinking maybe I was just convenient. Maybe I was just a box to check. Maybe-”
“No.”
He’s in front of me now, close enough to touch. His hands come up to frame my face, gentle, so gentle, despite the wildness in his eyes.
“Never,” he says fiercely. “You were never convenient. You were never a box to check. You were - you are-”
“Then tell me. Talk to me. Don’t just disappear and leave me wondering if-”
He kisses me.
It’s desperate, consuming, a kiss that feels like drowning and breathing at the same time. His hands are in my hair, on my back, pulling me closer, and he’s making sounds against my mouth, rough, broken sounds that go straight to my chest.
“I missed you,” he breathes between kisses. “So much. Too much.”
I want to stay angry. I have a whole speech. I built it on the bus, bullet points, a thesis statement, the works.
But he’s here, and he’s warm, and his hands have found the small of my back and spread wide, holding me up.
His heartbeat is going too fast under my palm.
I can feel it slamming against my hand where I’ve fisted it in his shirt, and mine answers it, thud for thud, until I can’t tell whose pulse is whose.
My mouth’s gone dry. My thighs have pressed together somewhere in the last few seconds and I don’t remember telling them to.
I’m supposed to be reading him the speech.
I’m counting the stubble along his jaw instead, the exact place his throat moves when he swallows, and I want to put my mouth on it so badly my teeth ache.
“You were gone for one day.”
“It felt like years.”
“Dramatic.”
“Accurate.” He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here. And I’m so furious you risked yourself like this - coming to the compound alone, at night, through territory that-”
“You were in trouble.”
“You could have been hurt.”
“You were in trouble, Milo.”
His expression shifts, still fierce, but softer now. More tender. “My brave girl. My ridiculous, reckless, perfect girl.”
“I’m still mad at you.”
“I know.”
“I’m furious.”
“I know.” He presses his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t enough.”
The accusation sits there between us.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t argue. Just holds my gaze with those impossible eyes and says, quietly:
“Then tell me what is.”