Chapter Three — The Stranger Who Stayed

The trouble started before Tyra even finished setting up her stall.

She was arranging her white roses at the front, fingers moving quickly through the bunch, when she heard them. Two men. Loud in that particular way that wanted an audience. She did not look up. Looking up was an invitation and she did not do invitations.

"Nice flowers," the first one said.

"Two copper a bunch," Tyra said without raising her eyes. "Which would you like?"

"How about that one." He pointed directly at her.

His friend laughed like that was the most original thing anyone had ever said.

Tyra kept her hands moving through the roses. Her face showed nothing. She had a system for moments like this. Keep the voice light. Keep the eyes steady. Give them nothing to feed on. Men like this fed on reaction. She refused to be food.

"Just flowers today," she said pleasantly. "Two copper. Best offer."

The first man leaned against her stall. He was big. Red faced. The kind of man who had never once been told no by someone smaller than him. "You are here alone every day aren't you. No family. Nobody checking on you."

Her jaw tightened.

"The roses," she said quietly. "Two copper. Or move along."

"Or what?" He smiled. It was not a kind smile.

"Or nothing."

The voice came from directly behind her.

Quiet. Almost lazy. The kind of voice that had never needed volume to fill a space.

Tyra turned around.

He was standing two feet away with his hands in his coat pockets looking at the two men with an expression of complete calm. Tall. Slim but built in a way that his dark coat could not hide entirely, the kind of build that revealed itself in the set of his shoulders and the way he stood. A face that stopped her completely. Sharp jaw. High cheekbones. Dark hair falling slightly across his forehead. Pale skin with a shadow under his eyes that made him look like he had seen things he could not unsee.

And eyes that hit her like a physical thing.

Gold.

Deep burning impossible gold.

The exact color of the wolf's eyes.

Her heart knocked once, hard, against her ribs and she told herself firmly that was coincidence and almost believed it.

The red faced man looked at the stranger the way men looked at things they were trying to decide whether to be afraid of. The stranger looked back and did not blink and did not move and did not do anything except exist in that space with a stillness that was somehow louder than anything either of the men had said.

They left.

No argument. No final word. They simply turned and walked away into the market crowd like they had somewhere important to be.

Tyra watched them go. Then she turned to the stranger.

"I was handling it," she said.

"I know," he said.

"Then why did you step in?"

"I felt like it." He looked at her roses. "How much for a bunch?"

She stared at him. "I was handling it."

"You said that already." His gold eyes moved to her face. Calm. Direct. Giving nothing away and somehow everything away at the same time. "Two copper yes?"

"You are not even going to apologize?"

"For what exactly?"

"For interrupting."

He tilted his head slightly to the left. "Would you like me to go back and ask them to return? I can do that if it helps."

Tyra opened her mouth. Closed it.

His face was completely straight. But something behind those gold eyes was laughing at her and doing a terrible job of hiding it.

She hated that she almost smiled.

"Two copper," she said flatly.

He reached into his coat without hurrying and placed two coins on the edge of her stall. Then he straightened and turned to leave.

"Your flowers," she said.

"Keep them."

"You paid for them."

"Consider it a donation," he said, glancing back over his shoulder. "To the I was handling it fund."

She stared at his back. "I did not ask for a donation."

He raised one hand without turning around and disappeared into the crowd.

Tyra stood holding two copper coins staring at the space where he had been. Her pulse was doing something completely unreasonable and she refused to acknowledge it.

She looked down at the coins.

Turned them over.

Then she stopped.

The mint mark on both coins was wrong. She had handled thousands of coins in five years of market work. She knew every regional stamp within three towns of Grimwall. These were not from any of them.

She brought one close to her eyes.

A wolf. Stamped deep into the metal. Mid shift. Half man. Half beast. Head thrown back in a silent howl. The detail was extraordinary. Every line precise. Every muscle caught perfectly in metal.

Around the edge in letters so small she had to squint were words in a language she had never seen.

She had never seen that language anywhere in her life.

But something deep in her bones responded to it like a plucked string, vibrating with a frequency she could not explain and could not ignore.

She closed her fingers around the coin.

Looked up at the crowd where the stranger had gone.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

Across the market Troy stood with his back against a wall and his eyes closed.

She had looked at him.

That was the problem. She had turned around and looked directly at him and those light brown almond eyes had found his face and his wolf had surged forward so hard and so fast that he had needed every year of his training to keep it contained.

His wolf knew her.

Of course it knew her. He had been shifting every night for three months to sit in her alley and listen to her talk and eat bread from her hand. His wolf had memorized everything about her. Her voice. Her scent. The way she moved through the world like it owed her nothing and she expected nothing and she kept showing up anyway.

Now his human side had looked at her and the damage was considerably worse.

His phone buzzed.

Alpha Drak.

"Three days Troy."

He opened his eyes.

Looked across the market at the girl with the messy brown curls standing at her flower stall turning his coin over in her fingers with a small frown on her face.

She was already suspicious.

She was already too smart.

He typed back.

"Three days."

He pocketed the phone.

And told himself the sick feeling in his chest was nothing.

He had been telling himself that for three months.

He was getting worse at believing it.