Chapter 4

The east sitting room was smaller than I expected from a compound built like a fortress — warm light, a fire already going despite the mild afternoon, furniture worn soft in the particular way of rooms people actually lived in rather than rooms built to impress. Someone had put thought into making this space feel like the opposite of everything outside its walls.

The woman standing by the window turned before Gideon had fully announced me, like she’d been listening for my footsteps the whole way down the hall.

“Ms. Vance.” She crossed the room to meet me rather than waiting for me to come to her, and I clocked the slight unevenness in her gait before I clocked anything else about her — not a limp exactly, more like a step that had been rebuilt and never quite forgot it had been broken. She didn’t hide it and didn’t draw attention to it either. It was simply part of how she moved through a room, the way anyone’s history eventually became part of how they moved. “Thank you for coming all this way. I know this isn’t a small thing to ask of anyone.”

“It’s the job,” I said, which was true and also, I realized as soon as it left my mouth, slightly less gracious than the moment probably called for.

She didn’t seem to mind. If anything, something in her expression eased, like the flat professionalism was a relief rather than an insult. “I appreciate you not pretending it’s anything softer than that. I’d rather start honest.”

“Selene Thorne,” Gideon said, from the doorway, formal enough that I understood it was as much for the record as for introduction. “I’ll let the Alpha know you’ve arrived, Ms. Vance. He’s finishing with the border council.”

“Thank you, Gideon.” Selene’s eyes followed him out, and something in her posture shifted once the door closed — not relaxing, exactly, but settling, like she’d been holding a particular version of herself for the hallway and could put it down now that we were alone.

“Please, sit.” She gestured toward the chairs near the fire rather than the more formal arrangement by the window, and I noted the choice — an intended mate meeting her fiancé’s surrogate in the room built for comfort instead of the room built for business. Either a genuine kindness or a very good performance of one. I’d learn which soon enough. I usually did.

“I imagine you’ve done this before,” she said, once we were both seated, tea appearing at her elbow from somewhere I hadn’t noticed a servant enter. “Sitting across from someone in my position.”

“Six times.”

“And do they all ask the same question I’m about to ask?”

“Usually two questions. Whether it hurts you to do this, and whether I’ll want anything from the pack once it’s over.”

Something that might have been a real laugh escaped her, quick and a little surprised at itself. “I wasn’t going to be that predictable. But since you’ve opened the door — does it? Hurt, I mean. To carry something you’ll hand away at the end of it.”

I’d been asked variations of that question a dozen times over five years, and I’d built a smooth, practiced answer for most versions of it. Something about the Conduit gift, about the clean lines I drew around every contract, about walking away with my heart exactly as intact as I’d arrived with it. I opened my mouth to give her that answer and, for reasons I couldn’t immediately name, gave her a truer one instead.

“No,” I said. “Not the way you mean. I don’t grieve them when I leave. I think that surprises people more than it should.”

“It doesn’t surprise me.” Selene wrapped both hands around her tea, not drinking it, just holding the warmth. “I think it would be a strange kind of unkind, if it worked any other way. Asking someone to carry a child and then also asking them to be devastated at handing it over — that’s not a fair thing to want from a person.”

“Most people want it anyway. Not out loud. But you can see it in how they look at me the first few weeks. Waiting for me to crack.”

“I won’t be waiting for that.” She said it simply, without performance, and I believed her more than I’d believed almost anyone in this position before. “I’ve spent six years learning what I can and can’t control about my own body, Ms. Vance. I’m not going to spend the next nine waiting for you to feel something you’ve told me plainly you won’t feel. That seems like a poor use of both our time.”

I studied her for a second longer than was strictly polite. Six years — that lined up with whatever had left her walking the way she did, and I filed the number away without asking about it directly. Whatever it was, it wasn’t mine to pull out of her on a first meeting, and something about the careful, controlled way she’d offered even that much told me she’d share the rest only when she chose to, not when I pushed.

“Can I ask you something back,” I said.

“Of course.”

“Why did you want to meet me before the Alpha did? Most intendeds I’ve worked with avoid the surrogate as long as they can manage. Let the Alpha handle the awkward part.”

Selene considered the question with the same unhurried care she seemed to give everything. “Because this is happening to my body as much as it’s happening to yours, in every way that matters except the literal one. I didn’t want my first understanding of you to come filtered through Kieran’s account of a business meeting. I wanted to know who you actually are before I spent the next nine months sharing a household with you.”

“And? Verdict so far?”

“Direct. Unsentimental. Kinder than you’re pretending to be.” She smiled, and it reached her eyes in a way that made something in my chest tighten in a manner I didn’t have a professional category for. “I think we’re going to get along, Ms. Vance.”

“Runa,” I said, before I’d fully decided to offer it. First names weren’t something I handed out on day one, as a rule. I gave them out somewhere around month three, once the professional shape of a contract was solid enough that a little warmth couldn’t crack it. Something about Selene Thorne had me skipping ahead of my own schedule, and I noticed it happening in real time without managing to stop it.

“Selene, then.” She said it like she’d been waiting for permission. “I mean this as a genuine offer, not a courtesy — if this becomes difficult, in any way, for either of us, I’d rather we said so to each other directly. I’ve found that’s usually kinder than pretending everything is fine until it isn’t.”

I thought about Petra’s voice in my head — bigger stakes have bigger ways of going sideways — and pushed it down, mostly because it felt unfair to the woman in front of me, offering me more honesty in twenty minutes than most clients managed in a full nine months.

“I can work with that,” I said.

The door opened before she could answer, and whatever warmth had settled into the room shifted immediately into something more careful, more watchful — Selene’s spine straightening a fraction, her expression sliding back into the composed version I now understood she’d built specifically for hallways and doorways and moments that weren’t just for the two of us.

“He’s ready for you,” she said, standing. “I should warn you — Kieran isn’t going to be what I was. He’s not unkind. He’s just spent a very long time not letting himself be anything but useful to this pack. Don’t mistake it for coldness. It’s closer to armor.”

I stood too, smoothing my jacket, resetting myself into the version of me that walked into rooms with Alphas.

“I’ve handled colder,” I said.

Selene’s expression did something complicated — not quite doubt, not quite amusement. “I don’t think you have,” she said. “But you’re about to find out.”