LOGINCaelum did not get jealous.Jealousy was an inefficient emotion. It clouded judgment, distorted data, and made wolves misinterpret correlation as threat. He had learned long ago to catalog it in others without letting it contaminate his own thinking.Which was why he recognized the sensation immediately for what it was. And rejected the name.He stood on the upper walkway overlooking the inner square, hands clasped behind his back, posture relaxed enough to look casual. From here, he could see most of the morning traffic without being part of it—vendors packing up, warriors shifting routes, apprentices drifting toward training rings with the restless energy of youth.And there—near the garden path—Lexara Veyne. Alone now.Alaric was gone from her immediate vicinity, lingering farther back near the outer ring, speaking with one of Davi’s aides. Respectful distance. Correct optics. Too correct.Caelum tracked the space between them automatically. Measured it. Compared it to the spacing
Rurik watched from the edge of the square. Not hiding. Not hovering. Just far enough away to see the shape of things without becoming part of them. He’d positioned himself near the low stone steps by the irrigation channel, where vendors cut through toward the gardens and the morning traffic thinned enough for patterns to show. From here, he had a clean sightline: the outer ring, the garden path, and the stretch of packed earth where Lexara had slowed.Where Alaric had stayed. Too close. Not touching. That was the problem.Rurik had spent his life learning the difference between threat and intent. Alaric wasn’t threatening her. Which made this worse. He stood with the ease of someone who knew exactly how much space to take without crossing a line. Didn’t block her path. Didn’t crowd her shoulder. Didn’t lean in when he spoke. He matched her pace. Let her lead the direction. Let her choose when they stopped.And Lexara? Lexara let him. Not passively. Not unknowingly. Deliberately. That
Walking beside Lexara felt like stepping into a current. Not the kind that dragged. Not the kind that resisted. The kind that decided.Alaric kept his hands visible, his pace matched to hers with deliberate precision. He’d learned long ago that dominance didn’t require volume or posture — it required certainty. And Lexara carried certainty like a second spine. They passed a cluster of apprentices sparring near the training green. One misstepped, footing slipping on loose soil. Another corrected him immediately, voice low, motion clean. No command barked. No authority invoked. Just correction. Alaric clocked it.Lexara didn’t look. Didn’t pause. Didn’t even turn her head. The correction still happened. That told him more than any rumor. She walked like someone who had already been integrated into the system — not formally, not by decree, but by usefulness. Wolves adjusted around her without thinking about why. It wasn’t attraction. It was alignment.“So,” he said casually, breaking the
Lexara left the dining hall without announcement. Not abruptly. Not pointedly. She simply finished her meal, nodded once to Seraphine, and stood. Chairs scraped. Conversation stumbled, then resumed. The moment passed—barely noticed by anyone except the wolves whose attention mattered.She stepped outside into morning light and let the air hit her skin. The packhouse courtyard was already alive: vendors setting up low tables, children darting between stone paths, the scent of fried bread and spiced fruit rising with the sun. Breakfast didn’t end at the table here—it spilled outward, communal and casual, into the open.That was why she liked it. No hierarchy. No seating charts. Just movement.She reached a small cart near the edge of the square—flatbread folded around herbs and honeyed nuts—and paid without ceremony. The vendor smiled, not deferential, not wary. Just friendly.Lexara took a bite. And then—without surprise—felt the shift beside her.“Good choice,” Alaric said lightly. “T
Caelum chose his seat carefully. Not because he was worried about offending anyone—but because placement was data.He entered the dining hall a full minute after Alaric, late enough to let the initial disturbance ripple through the room, early enough to catch how it settled. Wolves had already adjusted their posture. Voices had dropped half a register. The casual sprawl of breakfast had tightened into something more alert.Lexara sat exactly where he expected her to. Alaric sat exactly where he shouldn't. And Rurik—Seryx’s human half—had shifted just enough in his chair to signal he’d already clocked both of them.Caelum took the open seat beside Rurik. Not across. Not opposite. Adjacent. A choice.Rurik glanced sideways at him, eyes sharp, mouth neutral. “You always sit this close to visiting Alphas?” Rurik murmured.“Only the disruptive ones,” Caelum replied quietly. “It helps with triangulation.”Rurik snorted under his breath. “You strategists are strange.”“You’re welcome to call
Lexara knew something was wrong the moment she stepped into the dining hall. Not wrong like danger. Wrong like the rhythm had changed.Breakfast in Seraphine’s territory was never loud. It wasn’t silent either — just layered. The low murmur of conversation, the scrape of benches, the quiet efficiency of wolves who trusted the morning to arrive whether they rushed it or not.Today, there was a pause threaded through it. A hesitation. She felt it before she saw it — a subtle tightening along her spine, the way her resonance pulled inward instead of spreading. Like the air itself was bracing.Rurik was already there, seated near the long table’s edge, shoulders relaxed but eyes sharp. He clocked her the second she entered and gave the faintest tilt of his head.Incoming, that gesture said.She hadn’t yet figured out from where. Lexara crossed the room calmly, selecting a place midway down the table — not at the center, not at the margins. She sat, nodded once to Seraphine across from her







