2

Eventually his breathing deepened, slow and even, and I waited, counting the seconds, before easing myself out from under his arm.

"Where are you going?" he murmured, voice thick with sleep, eyes barely open.

"Bathroom," I whispered, and he did not argue, already sinking back into rest — which somehow felt worse than if he'd caught me outright.

The moment the bedroom door clicked shut behind me, the phone buzzed again in my palm. I stared at it in the dark hallway, thumb hovering, heartbeat loud enough that I was almost sure Kael could hear it straight through the wall.

I answered. "Hello?"

Silence, then a man's voice, low and unbearably familiar. "You still answer."

I glanced at the closed bedroom door like it might overhear anyway. "Not tonight."

"You said that last time."

"I mean it this time."

A pause stretched between us, heavier than it had any right to be. "I just wanted to hear your voice," he said quietly, and my chest tightened in a way I refused to examine too closely, standing barefoot in a dark hallway with my own heart arguing against me.

"You heard it. I have to go." I ended the call before he could answer, before I could listen to whatever came next and feel something I had no right to feel — not with a man sleeping twenty feet away who trusted me more than I currently deserved.

I stood frozen in the hallway for several seconds, then slipped the phone beneath my pillow when I returned to the room.

Kael was awake. His eyes followed me across the dark, sharp despite the hour. "You took a while."

"I couldn't sleep," I said, too fast.

He sat up slightly. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." The word left me before I'd even decided on it. He reached for me, and I hesitated, only a second, barely a breath, but his hand stopped halfway, and something in his expression cracked, small and quiet, quickly hidden away again.

"Come here," he whispered, softer this time, almost a plea instead of an invitation.

I climbed back into bed. He pulled me against him, wrapping his arm around my waist like he was afraid I might slip through his fingers if he didn't hold tight enough, and pressed his lips to my temple. I closed my eyes. I should have felt guilty. Instead I felt confused, because the man holding me was the man I had once believed I could not live without, and yet someone else's voice had just made my pulse stumble in a way I hated myself for.

Morning came too fast. Kael was already at the table when I walked in, dressed for his Alpha duties, looking unfairly good in a plain black shirt that had absolutely no business fitting him that well.

"You're staring," he said, not looking up.

"I'm looking."

"Same thing."

"No." I smiled despite myself, sitting across from him. He pushed a plate toward me. "Eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"You barely ate yesterday."

"I'll be fine, I just lost my appetite." His eyebrows pulled together, concern breaking clean through the teasing. "Serena."

I sighed and picked up the fork, if only to end the conversation — but the smell of eggs hit me wrong and my stomach turned sharply. I pushed the plate away without thinking.

His eyes narrowed instantly, alert. "You're sick."

"No."

"You nearly gagged."

"I did not."

"You did." His voice had dropped low, protective, that particular Alpha edge creeping in around the words.

"Can you stop monitoring every breath I take?" I snapped, and immediately watched his face fall, hurt flashing plain and unguarded before he could smooth it back over. "I didn't mean—"

"You're right," he said quietly, leaning back. "I do it too much." That answer surprised me more than any argument would have. I looked at him properly, and he rubbed a hand along his jaw, a small, tired gesture I rarely saw from him.

"My Frenzy makes me afraid."

"Of what?"

"Losing you." The room went very quiet. I looked down at my untouched plate, unable to hold his gaze. "You cannot keep being afraid of losing me every single day, Kael. It's exhausting for both of us."

"I know."

"Then trust me."

"I'm trying." His voice was so quiet, so genuinely worn, that I couldn't bring myself to push further, not when I was hiding a phone call under my own pillow not eight hours earlier.

My phone buzzed inside my bag, and I froze mid-breath. His eyes cut toward it immediately, sharp as a blade catching light.

I grabbed the bag too fast. "I need to take this."

"Who is it?"

"I don't know." I forced a smile that felt paper-thin even to me. "Probably my mother," I added, already walking away, already lying, already hating how easily it came out of my mouth this time.

The screen showed no name. Only a new message: You cannot avoid me forever.

I stared at it until my thumb finally moved, deleting it before I could think better of it, and returned to the table wearing a smile I did not feel anywhere close to my chest.

"Everything okay?" Kael asked, watching me the way he always watched me, like he was searching for the crack in the surface he already suspected was there.

"Everything is perfect." The lie tasted bitter going down, and some small, honest part of me wondered how many more of those I actually had left in me.

That night, I stood alone in front of my mirror, studying a face that looked exactly the same as it always had, though nothing underneath it felt the same at all. Kael loved me. I knew that with total certainty. I loved him too, or I thought I did, though lately love had started to feel less like warmth and more like a slow accumulation of questions I was too afraid to answer honestly, even to myself.

My phone vibrated. Another message. Only three words this time: Tomorrow. Come alone.

My breath caught in my throat. I read it twice, then a third time, my fingers tightening around the phone until my knuckles ached. I should have deleted it. Instead I typed back a single word, Where? and stared at the message for a long moment before pressing send.

The instant it disappeared into the dark, the bedroom door opened behind me.

I spun around. Kael stood in the doorway, his eyes dropping first to the phone glowing in my hand, then slowly, deliberately, to my face. Whatever warmth had lived in his expression only moments earlier was gone entirely, replaced by something colder, something that made my chest tighten with real dread for the first time all night.

He took one slow step into the room.

"Who," he said quietly, "are you texting?"