4

"Serena," he said, voice dropping soft, the kind of softness that used to be a home I lived in once.

"Don't," I said.

"You still feel something," he said, not a question, just an observation he was laying down between us like a card on a table.

I closed my eyes. "This is a mistake," I said.

"Probably," he agreed easily, no fight in it at all.

"You shouldn't have contacted me," I said.

"Probably," he said again.

"You shouldn't be sitting in my car."

"Definitely," he agreed, and when I opened my eyes to glare at him he was already smiling, and a laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it, betraying me completely.

"You're impossible," I said, half-laughing despite myself.

"I remember you saying that," he said. "Frequently, in fact. I used to keep count."

"You remember too much," I said.

"I remember everything about you," he said, low, and the laughter died in my throat as the air inside the car turned suddenly, dangerously warm, thick with all the things neither of us was supposed to still feel.

He reached toward me and I caught his wrist on instinct, fingers closing tight around it before I'd even decided to move. "Don't," I said.

He stilled instantly, eyes dropping to where I held him before lifting back to mine, something unreadable passing behind them. "I wasn't going to hurt you," he said, quiet.

"I know," I said.

"Then why are you shaking?" he asked.

I let go of him fast, pulse hammering hard enough that I could feel it in my throat. "I need to go," I said. He nodded, but before I could turn the key, he spoke again, all the softness gone from his voice, replaced by something more urgent.

"There's something you need to know," he said.

I looked at him warily. "What?" I asked.

"Kael isn't the only person who knows about us," he said.

My blood went cold in an instant, every ounce of warmth from a moment ago gone entirely. "What do you mean?" I demanded.

He glanced toward the café window, scanning once, quick and practiced, like he'd done it before without me noticing. "Someone else knows," he said.

"Who?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"You dragged me here just to tell me that?" I snapped.

"I wanted to warn you," he said, unbothered by my tone, steady in a way that only made me angrier.

"Then warn me properly, Adrian," I said. "Don't hand me half a sentence and expect me to sit here calmly and thank you for it. I have a husband at home who's already looking at me like I'm made of glass. I don't have room left over for cryptic."

He sighed, rubbing a hand across his jaw. "Someone's been watching you," he said.

My stomach twisted hard. "For how long?" I asked.

"Long enough."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got, Serena," he said, and for the first time all afternoon there was no performance in it, nothing smug or knowing left in his voice at all. "I don't have names. I don't have dates. I have a bad feeling and a habit of trusting it, and that habit has kept me alive more than once."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" I asked.

"I wasn't sure."

"And now?" I pressed.

"Now I'm sure," he said, flat, final, and something in the certainty of it frightened me more than the vagueness had.

My phone rang without warning, Kael's name lighting the screen, and my heart leapt straight into my throat. Adrian's eyes flicked to it.

"Answer it," he said.

"No," I said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because if he hears your voice—" I started.

"He'll know?" he finished for me, almost amused despite everything.

"Yes," I said.

A faint, knowing smile crossed his mouth, though it didn't quite reach his eyes this time. "Then maybe ask yourself why you're more afraid of him knowing than you are of me sitting here right now," he said. I hated that question with everything in me, because I genuinely didn't have an answer, and worse, I think he already knew that before he'd even asked it.

The ringing stopped. A message replaced it a second later. Kael: Where are you? I stared at the screen, breath caught, and a second message landed right behind it. Kael: Please come home.

My chest cinched tight, guilt and fear tangling together into something I couldn't name. Adrian read my expression easily, the way he always had. "Go," he said.

"What?" I said.

"Go home," he said, already reaching for the door handle.

"But—" I started.

"You came for answers," he said, opening the door. "You got one." He stepped out onto the pavement, and I rolled the window down before I could think better of it, some old reflex I hadn't managed to unlearn.

"Adrian," I called after him.

He glanced back, eyebrows lifting. "What?" he said.

I hesitated, throat tight. "Why did you really call me?" I asked.

His smile returned, slow and knowing, though there was something almost sad underneath it now. "Because I wanted to see if you'd still come," he said. Then he walked away, hands in his pockets, unhurried, and I sat frozen behind the wheel long after he'd disappeared around the corner, that answer settling into my chest like something cold and permanent, something I'd be carrying for a long time.

By the time I made it home, the sun was already sinking, painting the whole street in a color I usually loved and now barely noticed. Kael stood by the living room window, arms crossed, watching the street — and the fact that he wasn't angry, that he was simply waiting, somehow felt far worse than if he'd been shouting the second I walked through the door.

"Where were you?" he asked as I set my bag down, not turning around at first, still watching whatever he'd been watching outside.

"Out," I said.

"With who?" he asked, finally facing me, and there was nothing casual left in his posture, nothing of the man who'd caught a pillow one-handed and grinned about it the night before.

I met his eyes. "Kael—" I started.

"With who, Serena?" he demanded.

"Does it matter that I'm home now?" I asked. "I came back. Doesn't that count for anything at all?"

"It counts for exactly as much as an honest answer would," he said, "and right now I have neither one."

"I don't know how to explain this without making it sound worse than it actually is."

"Then explain it badly," he said. "I would rather have that than nothing, Serena. I would rather have you fumble through the ugly version of the truth than hand me another smooth, careful lie."

Silence stretched taut between us, his jaw ticking once, twice. Then something shifted in his gaze, sharper, more animal, his wolf rising close beneath the surface in a way I'd only seen a handful of times in all our years together. He stepped toward me. "You smell different," he said, low, almost to himself, like the words had escaped before he meant to say them out loud.

My heart stopped cold. I stepped back on instinct, and he froze mid-step, eyes narrowing to slits, some old hurt flashing across his face at the sight of me retreating from him.

"Who were you with?" he asked again, harder this time.

"No one," I said.

"Don't lie to me," he said. "Not about this. I can smell the lie on you, Serena, you know I can, so please, for both our sakes, don't insult us both by trying it anyway."

"I'm not—" I started.

"Serena." His voice dropped low, dangerous. "Who?" he asked.

I couldn't force a single word past my lips. He stared at me a long moment, something breaking further behind his eyes with every second I stayed silent, and then his gaze dropped slowly to the phone still in my hand, to the notification glowing on the screen I hadn't even noticed light up. Kael saw it. I saw it a heartbeat later. Unknown Number. One line: You should have asked her what happened three months ago.

Kael's face went utterly, terrifyingly still, all the animal sharpness draining out of it and leaving something far worse behind. I felt every ounce of blood drain straight out of mine.

"Three months ago?" he said, quiet as a held breath. I couldn't breathe at all. He took one slow step closer, eyes never leaving my face, searching it for something I didn't know how to give him.

"What happened three months ago, Serena?" he asked.

My lips parted. Nothing came out. And standing there under the full weight of his stare, in the dying light coming through our own living room window, I understood, with a dread that swallowed me whole, that the secret I'd been guarding so carefully might not be the only one buried in our marriage, and someone, somewhere, had just decided it was finally time for all of it to surface, whether either of us was ready or not.