Chapter 87

Lara almost smiled as she watched Kelsey drive off that morning. It was deplorable, really, how her whole world had collapsed around something that couldn't move an inch in this valley without someone else's protection.

As if deliberately confirming her thoughts, Nell stood between Lara and Kelsey's car until it disappeared beyond the trees. Only then did she turn. For a moment, she and Lara faced each other in the cold morning light.

"I really don't think this is a good time, Lara," Nell said.

Lara smiled faintly, despite not feeling like it. "Let me be the judge of that."

Nell's mouth pressed into a thin line, her shoulders drawing inward. Then she turned and led the way toward the house. Lara followed, observing the Greystone residence briefly.

She had been there before, of course. Formal dinners. Holiday gatherings. Carefully arranged meetings where the adults spoke of border patrols and seasonal hunts while she and Ethan stood beside each other like young trees being trained to grow in the same direction. She knew the entry hall, the family photographs, the old staircase, Natalie's preference for fresh pine in winter and rosemary in summer.

But that morning the house seemed quieter than usual. And it reeked of blood and Ethan, both.

Jason met them at the door, his face bearing the same signs of fatigue as Nell's. His eyes moved over Lara's face, then flicked beyond her toward the road where Kelsey had gone, only for a moment.

"Lara," he said.

"Alpha Greystone."

Nell's gaze cut toward her. Lara felt it but didn't flinch. For a moment she expected Jason to object. Instead, he stepped aside in one cold, deliberate move, revealing Natalie, who stood near the staircase, her face pale and composed. She looked at Lara with something bordering on compassion, which Lara found more offensive than hostility.

"Is Ethan awake?" Lara asked.

"No," Natalie replied. "He's resting."

"Still, I would like to see him."

The air charged around the request. Natalie looked at Lara for a long moment.

"He is injured," she said.

"I know."

"He needs quiet."

"I won't disturb him."

Jason's expression remained unreadable. Lara could feel the refusal hiding behind the politeness, but she knew the Greystones were in no position to let that refusal come out in the open. So she lifted her chin.

"I'm not asking to interrogate him. I'm asking to see my intended after he was injured in a challenge that, by all available accounts, as well as the scent I sense in this house, concerns me directly."

No one spoke. Nell's mouth tightened. Natalie's eyes closed briefly.

Jason exhaled through his nose. "Five minutes." The words fell cold and final.

Lara inclined her head. "Thank you."

Jason's face remained expressionless. Not that she cared. She followed Natalie up the stairs.

Each step added more weight inside her.

At the top, the hallway stretched quiet and dim. A door to the right stood partly open, light spilling through the narrow gap. Natalie stopped before it and turned.

"He's asleep," she said. "Please don't wake him. If he wakes up confused, don't assault him with questions. There will be time for that later."

Lara held her gaze. "Fine."

Natalie's face softened again in that unbearable way. "Is it?"

Lara almost smiled. Almost.

Natalie opened the door.

The room greeted her with scents of blood, antiseptic, soap, and above all else, Ethan.

For a moment, Lara forgot how to move.

He lay on his side, partly turned toward the window, one arm above the blanket, the other tucked close to his ribs beneath it. Bandages cut white lines across his shoulder, throat, and side. Bruising had already begun to darken beneath his skin where it showed. His hair was a mess, dried damp at the temples, and his face looked more innocent in sleep than it had any right to look after what he had done.

Something in Lara's chest condensed and sank to the pit of her stomach. A small part of her still cared about him. Another part hated him for what he had done. And the biggest part was furious. He hadn't simply betrayed the agreement and destroyed both their futures, but he had done it in a way that made a fool out of her in front of the whole town.

She turned to face Natalie, her face pleasant and composed. "I'd like a few minutes alone, if it's possible."

For a moment, Natalie hesitated. "He's unconscious."

"Still," Lara said too fast. Then she attempted a weak smile. "After all these years, I'd like to think you know me well enough to know I would never do anything inappropriate under your roof. Regardless of the circumstances."

Natalie remained in the doorway for just a few moments longer than necessary, her hand tightening around the doorknob. "Five minutes," she repeated Jason's words softly. Then, after a pause, she stepped back and pulled the door closed behind her, leaving Lara alone with her son.

Lara waited for the door to fully close before she walked to stand beside Ethan's bed.

His breathing was slow and deep, dragged under by medication. One side of his mouth had a faint cut. His lashes lay dark against his skin.

Lara's hand curled at her side. "You stupid, stupid male," she whispered.

Ethan did not move.

That was when she saw the phone.

It lay on the nightstand beside a glass of water. The screen was dark. Lara looked at it, then at Ethan, then back at the phone.

She should not. The thought came clear. She should not touch it. She had already lost enough dignity that morning. There were lines even she should not cross, lines between strategy and scavenging.

She picked the phone up anyway.

The screen lit beneath her fingers. A lock screen. Of course. For one second, she almost put it back. Then memory rose, precise and unwanted. Ethan near his locker, opening the phone one-handed while Nell spoke. Ethan in the cafeteria, glancing down at a message, typing, locking it again.

Her thumb traced the same pattern she had watched Ethan use all those times. The phone unlocked.

For a moment, she simply stared.

The first thing she saw was the notifications. Kelsey. Kelsey. Kelsey again. One message after another, stacked in frantic little lines, asking him to answer, asking if he were okay.

Lara felt the room blur around her.

She opened the thread. The thread opened on the newest messages, all unanswered, all bright with desperation.

And then she began to scroll. Slowly at first. Then faster.

The messages continued, ordinary and intimate. For days. Weeks. Months.

Lara's fingers tightened around the phone. So many messages. Small jokes. Warnings. Careful pauses. Things that almost looked like nothing until they became everything as they stacked upon one another. A thread woven in plain sight under her nose, day after day, while Ethan stood beside her in hallways and let everyone believe the old arrangements still held.

Her breath had gone shallow.

She looked at him. He slept on, pale and unreachable.

The scent marking might have been explained, if she were generous enough to want explanation. Bloodkin. Inversion. Instinct. Accident. His body acting faster than his will. But this thing on the phone was not anything she could pin on the bloodkin effect. This was his choice, made again and again. This was intent. This was deliberate. A secret affair carried on behind everyone's back and under everyone's noses. Including hers.

Lara's hand began to tremble. She hated that. She set the phone down on the blanket and pressed her fingernails into her palm until the trembling stopped.

Then she picked it back up.

A floorboard creaked somewhere in the hall. She didn't have much time.

Lara looked at the thread one more time. Kelsey's last messages glowed up at her, desperate and unanswered. A terrible, cool calm moved through Lara then. If Kelsey wanted answers, she would get one.

Her thumbs hovered over the keyboard. She bit her lip. Then she began typing.

Kelse.

She stared at the word. It made her teeth ache. She forced herself to continue.

I'm awake.

Before she hit send, she looked at Ethan. A part of her, small and not yet dead, wanted him to wake. Wanted him to stop her. Wanted him to say her name with even a fraction of the softness he had given the girl in the phone.

He slept.

Lara pressed send .

The message appeared at the bottom of the thread. Delivered.

For a moment she simply hovered with the phone in her palm. She couldn't just put it back and pretend nothing had happened. She slid it into her pocket without making a sound and stepped back.

It buzzed faintly inside her pocket, making her heart jump up to her throat, then sink down to her stomach. That was a quick answer. The thought arrived almost like a punchline. For a moment she thought of answering back, then reconsidered. There would be time for that later. For now, all she needed to do was to stay calm.

Her face had settled by the time Natalie appeared at the door.

"Lara."

She turned. "Yes."

"Time's up."

Lara looked once more at Ethan. Bandaged. Breathing. Marked by his own choices even where no scent showed on his skin. Then she walked to the door.

Natalie searched her face. Perhaps she was looking for tears. Perhaps remorse. Perhaps reassurance. Lara gave her none of those.

"Thank you," she said. Her voice was perfectly calm.

Downstairs, Jason stood near the window and Nell at the foot of the stairs. Nell looked at Lara. Really looked.

"I hope he recovers quickly," Lara said.

Jason inclined his head. "So do we."

Lara put on her gloves. "Please tell him I came."

Natalie's face tightened. "I will."

Lara walked to the door. No one stopped her.

Outside, the morning had brightened by a shade. The cracked window of her car caught the light in a spiderweb pattern and returned her own reflection to her in pieces.

She looked at it for a moment. Then she got in and drove away from Greystone house, Kelsey's answer already waiting in her pocket.