chapter 5

The palace still smelled faintly of wet ash the next morning, which Lillo felt was fair.

The old cook had spent the night scrubbing his stove, and he glared at her over a tray of breakfast eggs with the cold dignity of a man attending a funeral. She ate every bite. A truce, she decided, was easier than starving.

Afterward came the shower, in a marble bathroom bigger than her father's entire kitchen, with water that was actually hot and pressure that could strip paint. She stayed under it far longer than was polite, letting the last of the forest, the soot, and the sprinkler water swirl down the drain.

It was only when she stepped out, wrapped in a towel, that she noticed the problem.

Her clothes were gone. The maid had taken her sweater "for laundering" the night before and had not returned it, and her denim jacket was presumably already ashes in some furnace. The room she'd woken in on the first day was Bryce's, he had made a point of mentioning, though he had graciously been sleeping elsewhere. His wardrobe, however, had stayed.

Lillo stared at the carved doors for a long moment.

"Absolutely not," she told herself.

Then she opened them.

It was the wardrobe of a man who had no time for color: charcoal, black, navy, and more charcoal, every shirt pressed and hung with military precision. It smelled of cedar and rain, which she found deeply unfair. She flicked through the hangers, scowling, until her fingers stopped on a plain white shirt.

She pulled it on.

The hem stopped mid-thigh. The sleeves swallowed her hands entirely, hanging a good four inches past her fingertips. Lillo rolled them up to her elbows, one fold at a time, then frowned at the mirror and undid the top few buttons.

She tilted her head.

It looked, annoyingly, beautiful.

"Fine," she muttered. "You win, wardrobe."

The door opened behind her without a knock, because it was his door. "Lillo, can we talk about—"

Bryce stopped.

Lillo turned from the mirror, one sleeve half rolled, her wet hair dripping onto the collar.

The silence stretched for so long she could hear the clock ticking on the mantel.

"Wow," Bryce said. The word seemed to leave him without permission. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I didn't know my clothes could look that good on someone."

Heat crept up Lillo's neck, which she blamed entirely on the shower. "Thanks." She finished rolling the sleeve with great nonchalance. "What did you want to talk about?"

He dragged his eyes upward, to her face, then to a spot just over her left ear, as if the ceiling had suddenly become fascinating. "We need to go shopping."

"Shopping?" She wrinkled her nose. "Like at the mall?"

"Not the mall." He looked faintly pained. "A boutique. You'll need new clothes. If you're going to be the Alpha King's Luna, you have to look the part."

Lillo's smile vanished. "I never agreed to that. I never agreed to be your Luna."

"The moon goddess already suggested that you are." He said it calmly, as if reporting the weather. "And tomorrow is the full moon. You know what happens at the full moon. I want you here."

Lillo blinked up at him, wide-eyed and innocent. "I don't know what happens at the full moon."

"Lillo."

"I really don't! What exactly happens?" She pressed a hand to her chest. "Am I going to turn into a wolf? Are we going to... what are we going to do?"

Bryce stared at her. "You grew up in a pack that has howled at every full moon for three hundred years."

"Sheltered life."

"Your ears have gone pink."

She clapped both hands over them. "That's the shower."

The corner of his mouth twitched. It was gone almost instantly, but she saw it, and she stored it away like a coin. "You'll figure it out," he said. "It's tomorrow night, after all."

He turned to the window and began adjusting his cuffs, which she had already learned was what he did when something was bothering him.

"There's something else. My parents arrive this afternoon."

"Ah."

"They don't know about you. They don't know I've found a mate." His jaw flexed. "They have already chosen a partner for me. She will be at the gathering tomorrow night."

Lillo let that sit for a moment, then drifted over to lean against the bedpost, arms folded in his enormous sleeves. "Oh. Is this the part where the chosen mate fights the fated one?"

"I don't think it will get to that part." He didn't look at her. "Besides, it's not as though I like her."

"Do you like me?"

The words dropped into the room like a stone into still water.

Bryce went absolutely motionless. The bond hummed between them, low and warm and impossible to ignore, and she watched his throat move as he swallowed. He opened his mouth. Closed it. For the first time since she'd met him, the Alpha King of the Forbidden Reach appeared to have no answer at all.

"Hurry up," he said at last, very evenly. "We're leaving."

He strode for the door like a man fleeing a fire.

Lillo grinned at his back. She didn't even try to hide it.

"I'm going with you!"

The door banged open before Bryce could reach it. Lilly stood in the doorway in a state of glorious disaster: curls like a bird's nest, her dress on backward, her shoes on the wrong feet, and Rosie the doll dangling by one arm. Behind her, the nanny stood gasping, one hand pressed to her side.

"Princess," the nanny wheezed. "I told you to stay put."

"I'm going with Daddy and almost-mommy!"

"Why?" Lillo asked.

Lilly lifted her chin, serene as a queen. "Kippos I want to go with you."

Lillo turned to Bryce. "Kippos?"

"Because," Bryce translated, with the weary calm of a man who had lost many wars. "It's the whole argument. There is no appeal."

Lilly nodded firmly, as if her case had been heard by the highest court in the land.

Bryce looked down at his daughter. Then he looked at Lillo, who had already knelt on the carpet to switch Lilly's shoes to the right feet, wearing his white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and her wet hair falling forward over her shoulder.

Involuntarily Bryce found himself looking at her thighs up to where the shirts stops and couldn't help the heat radiating inside of him. He unbuttoned his shirt and...

"Are you okay, you're sweating bullets." Lillo says and Bryce didn't even notice when she turned.

"Come here." He said with a low groan his eyes fixed on Lillo's cleavage.