Interrupted

For one long second, nobody moved.

Draven’s hand hung in the air, inches from my arm. Dax stood at the far end of the hallway, gold-eyed and silent. And I stood between them with a tray of empty wine glasses, wondering if I was about to watch someone die.

Then Draven dropped his hand.

“I was just talking to her,” he said. He tried to make it sound casual. It came out thin.

Dax didn’t answer. He didn’t move. He just looked at Draven the way I imagined a wolf looked at something small enough to swallow whole.

Draven swallowed.

“Draven!” Alpha Hale’s voice boomed from the front hall. “Get in the car!”

Draven took a step back. Then another. At the corner, he stopped and looked over his shoulder at me, one last time. His face was strange. Confused. Like he’d lost something and couldn’t remember where he’d put it.

Then he was gone.

I let out a breath. The glasses on my tray rattled.

Dax heard it. His eyes dropped to the tray, then to my hands, and the gold slowly faded out of them, back to dark green.

He walked toward me. Unhurried.

“I didn’t need rescuing,” I said, before he could say anything.

“Didn’t say you did.”

“I could’ve handled him.”

“I know.”

That stopped me. I’d been ready for an argument. I didn’t know what to do with I know.

He took the tray out of my hands and set it on a side table. Then he looked at me, really looked, and I realized my hands were still shaking. Worse now, without the tray to hold.

I curled them into fists.

“Don’t,” Dax said quietly.

He reached out and took my hands. Both of them. His were big and warm and rough with calluses, and he wrapped his fingers around mine like he was holding something that might break.

Nobody had held my hands since I was a child.

“It’s been a long night,” he said.

It wasn’t a question. I answered anyway.

“My mother walked right past me.” My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. “Three feet away. She didn’t even look.”

His grip tightened. Just slightly.

“And Fenris said...” I stopped. Swallowed. “He said I wasn’t theirs anymore. And for a second, I almost believed it.”

“Believe it,” Dax said.

I looked up at him.

He was closer than I’d realized. The hallway was dim, lit only by sconces on the dark walls, and his face was half in shadow. The scar through his eyebrow. The stubble along his jaw. The way he was looking at me like I was a problem he wanted to solve with his hands.

A loose strand of hair had fallen out of my ribbon during dinner. It hung against my cheek.

Dax let go of one of my hands and tucked it back. Slowly. His knuckles brushed my cheek, then lingered by my ear.

My heart stopped.

“You were good tonight,” he murmured. “Chin up. Didn’t flinch. Not once.”

“I flinched on the inside.”

The almost-smile. “Nobody saw.”

He didn’t move his hand. I didn’t move away. The space between us was shrinking, and I couldn’t tell which of us was doing it.

His gaze dropped to my mouth and stayed there.

Oh, I thought, dizzy. Oh, he’s going to kiss me.

“Flora.”

The voice came from the end of the hallway. Cold as winter.

Dax went still. His hand dropped.

Fenris stood at the far end of the hall, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled to his forearms. He wasn’t looking at me.

He was looking at his brother.

“My study,” Fenris said. “Now.”

Dax didn’t turn around. For a moment, he didn’t move at all. Then he slowly lowered his hand from my face and stepped back.

The brothers looked at each other over my head.

Neither of them said a word.

They didn’t have to. The air in the hallway was so heavy I could barely breathe. It felt like standing between two storms that had just noticed each other.

“Go,” Dax said to me, low. He didn’t take his eyes off Fenris.

I went.

My face was burning the whole way down the hall. I didn’t look back.

But I felt Dax watching me until I turned the corner.

---

Fenris’s study was dark except for the fire.

He’d poured himself a drink. He stood by the window with his back to me, looking out at the drive where Nightreach’s tail lights were disappearing into the trees.

I waited by the door.

He said nothing.

The silence stretched until I couldn’t stand it.

“Thank you,” I said. “For tonight. For what you said at dinner.”

“Don’t thank me.”

“I just wanted to...”

“I didn’t do it for you.” He turned around. His face was perfectly blank. “Nyssa Volkov was making a fool of my table. Hale came here to beg for favors he hasn’t earned. I don’t tolerate either.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Of course.”

He took a sip of his drink.

His knuckles were white around the glass.

I noticed. He noticed me noticing. His jaw flexed.

“That’s all,” he said.

I blinked. “That’s all? You called me in here for that?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t need anything?”

“No.”

I stared at him. He stared back.

He didn’t say Dax’s name. He didn’t mention the hallway. He didn’t ask what had happened, or what had almost happened.

But somehow that silence said more than any question could have.

“Good night, Alpha,” I said finally.

“Good night, Flora.”

I was at the door when he spoke again, very quietly, almost like he hadn’t meant to.

“Your mother is a fool.”

I stopped with my hand on the doorknob.

When I turned around, he’d already faced the window again.

I left before he could see my face.

---

I didn’t cry until I was back in my little room behind the kitchen.

Not because of my mother. Not even because of Draven.

Because two men had said kind things to me in one night, and I didn’t know what to do with it. It was easier to be invisible. Being seen was terrifying.

I laid down in my bed and stared at my ceiling for hours. Then phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Orion: Flo. Are you okay? What happened at that dinner?

Orion: Hale came home LIVID. 

Then:

Orion: The whole pack heard what Fenris said about the timber. People are talking. Mom hasn’t come out of her room. Dad tried to go to the pack meeting tonight and three ranked families walked out when he came in.

I stared at the screen.

Orion: But Flo… Hale’s saying it’s your fault.

Orion: He’s telling everyone you turned the Aurexians against Nightreach on purpose. That you’re poisoning them against us.

Orion: Some people are believing him.

I set the phone down on the blanket.

Nightreach had sold me. Laughed at me. Walked past me without a glance.

And somehow, I was still the one they blamed.

I rolled over and pulled a blanket over me. For the first time, it didn’t feel like sinking.

It felt like the moment right before something rises.