Chapter 28

IRIS POV:

The driver was at the door at nine exactly.

I had been up since seven. I had changed my outfit three times, which was something I refused to think about too deeply.

I settled on a fitted cream blouse tucked into high-waisted black trousers and wore my hair down. Simple. Put together.

My mother was in the kitchen when I came downstairs.

She looked at me.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I have a meeting," I said.

She looked at my outfit. Then at my hair. Then back at my face.

"A meeting," she repeated.

"Yes, Mum."

She turned back to her tea without another word, but I saw the small thing that moved across her face before she turned, and I chose not to address it.

I picked up my bag and opened the front door.

The driver was standing beside a white Rolls Royce. Not the SUV from yesterday. This one was different, longer. He was in a dark uniform, and he tilted his head when he saw me without saying anything and opened the rear door.

I got in.

The interior smelled like cedar.

I noticed immediately and wished I had not.

The drive to the Virex Grand took fifteen minutes. The city moved past the tinted windows, and I sat with my hands in my lap and told myself I was calm and almost believed it.

When we arrived, the same staff member from yesterday was in the private elevator. The doors opened at the top floor, and I stepped out into the corridor and walked to the suite door and knocked.

"Come in," Aurelian said from inside.

I pushed the door open.

He was standing at the window.

Standing with his back to the room, one hand in his pocket, looking out at the pack.

He was in a dark shirt today, sleeves pushed to his elbows, and even like that, even without the white suit and the formal armor of everything that usually surrounded him, the room felt like it belonged to him.

He turned when he heard the door close behind me.

His eyes moved over me once. Slowly, like he was reading something.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

He moved to the window seat, angled toward me, and looked at me with those storm-gray eyes.

"Fiona," I said, before he could redirect or rearrange the conversation.

He looked at me.

"You said you would tell me," I said.

"I did," he said.

He was quiet for a moment.

"She was a wolf," he said finally.

I waited.

"Young. From a small family with no particular standing. She came into my world the way most unexpected things do." He paused. "Without permission."

"How long ago?" I asked.

"Eight years," he said.

"What happened to her?"

He looked at the window for a moment.

"She was taken," he said. "By people who wanted to use her to get to me. People who understood that she was the one thing that could make me move without thinking." He said it quietly. "I found her. But not in time."

The suite was very quiet.

"I'm sorry," I said.

He looked back at me. "My father never met her. He only knew of her. He knew she existed, and he knew what she meant to me, and he has been waiting for eight years for me to bring someone through a door the way I was going to bring her." He held my gaze.

"Have you found her killer?" I asked.

His face changed like he did not want me to ask that question. "She's not... not dead."

My eyes shot open.

"The fact I said I was late does not mean she was killed." He continued.

I became even more shocked.

"But..."

"It's enough." He cut me off. "The information I gave you is enough. Do you have any other questions pertaining to the deal that are not concerned with what happened to her?"

"And your brother?" I asked, changing the subject.

"My brother knew more than my father did," he said. "But not enough to catch you out. I'll prepare you with what you need."

"What was she like?" I asked. "How did she carry herself? How did she speak?" I continued.

"Carefully," he said. "She listened more than she talked. She noticed things before she reacted to them." He looked at me steadily. "You already do both of those things."

"She never acted amazed at anything, not even the fact that I was a Lycan. She handled it boldly," he said.

I looked at my hands for a moment.

"Is that why you stopped the car?" I asked quietly. "Because I reminded you of her?"

"No," he said.

"Then why?"

He stood up from the window seat and crossed the room slowly.

He stopped in front of where I was sitting.

"Stand up," he said quietly.

I stood.

We were closer than I had planned for. Close enough that I had to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze.

"You did not remind me of her," he said. "You reminded me of nothing I had seen before."

I opened my mouth to respond.

Then his eyes changed.

It was subtle at first. A warmth behind the storm gray that had not been there before. Then the gold came, slowly bleeding into his irises the way it had that night in his room at the estate.

Something moved through me like something warm poured into cold water. My thoughts did not disappear exactly. They just became less insistent. The part of me that was always watching and calculating and keeping distance went very quiet, and what was left was just me standing in front of a hot Lycan without any of the armor I usually carried.

My wolf did not fight it either.

"Aurelian." My voice came out soft.

His eyes stayed gold.

His hand came up slowly, and his fingers tucked a strand of hair back from my face, and his thumb rested just below my cheekbone, and I did not move away.

Deep down, I felt I could fight it, but I did not.

He leaned down.