26.Memory

Elle

Dominic helped me into my coat and kept his palm against my back all the way to the car.

Mist blurred the windows. The moment the door closed, the quiet changed. Aurelia’s wards had stripped away the world; the royal car held it just beyond the glass, close enough for me to see and too far away to touch.

Dominic sat beside me, thigh against mine. The first time the car turned, his arm went around my waist and stayed there.

“You know I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

“I know.”

“Then why are you holding me like I might?”

He glanced at his hand, almost irritated to find it there. “I keep deciding to give you space. It lasts about thirty seconds.”

My wolf stopped clawing at my ribs when I settled closer. Dominic shifted from holding my waist to holding my hand, his thumb moving over my knuckles with no rhythm he seemed aware of.

The villa stood in the oldest part of the royal district, where glass towers gave way to walls built before wolves answered to a single crown. The road narrowed between black stone houses with silver moons carved above their gates. Once, the first Lycan kings had kept separate residences for every great pack that pledged itself to them. Most were embassies or museums now. Dominic’s private house was the only one with no flag outside and no guards visible from the street.

He had carried me through these doors half-conscious and burning from Soren’s drug. Tonight I walked in beside him by choice.

A piece of black moonstone sat beside the entrance, smooth as river rock and threaded with silver light. Moonlight Pack used boundary stones to recognize its wolves, but those stones carried the scent of earth and every Alpha who had fed power into them. The king’s private house held something older. It moved beneath my skin like a second, slower heartbeat.

Dominic placed his palm over it.

“Elle Whitmore enters under my protection. Learn her voice, her scent, and her wolf. Every door that opens for me opens for her.”

The silver veins flashed. Locks released through the house, and lamps woke one room after another until warm gold filled the entrance hall.

The woman waiting inside glanced at the stone, then at Dominic. “It already knows her, Your Majesty.”

His gaze sharpened, but she did not take the words back.

“How?” I asked.

Dominic lifted his hand. The moonstone kept glowing beneath it. “I gave the house your name after you left the first time.”

I stared at him. “You’d known me for one night.”

“I know.” Frustration roughened his voice. “It made no sense then either.”

The woman introduced herself as Mrs. Lane, the keeper of the villa and apparently one of the few people alive who could tell the king he was being strange without losing her job. Two younger staff waited behind her with garment boxes, all three wearing the silver crescent of Dominic’s private household rather than the crowned wolf of the palace.

“His Majesty asked that everything be prepared before sunset,” Mrs. Lane said. “I hope we judged correctly.”

“You knew I might come?” I asked her.

Her eyes moved toward Dominic. “I knew His Majesty had ordered us to be ready.”

That was not the same thing. It was somehow worse.

Mrs. Lane led us through an inner courtyard where an ancient white tree grew beneath an opening in the roof. Silver ribbons hung from its branches, each one stamped with the name of a royal wolf who had slept beneath this roof. The newest ribbon belonged to Rosalie. Dominic’s name hung much higher, dulled by rain and time.

“The house records blood?” I asked.

“Memory,” Dominic said. “Blood is easier. Memory matters more.”

The west suite overlooked the old capital. Clothes filled the wardrobe in several sizes: jeans, sweaters, dresses, boots without ridiculous heels, soft shirts, and a black robe laid across the bed. Someone had thought beyond court dinners. I could actually wear this shit.

“If anything is wrong, we’ll replace it,” Mrs. Lane said.

I ran my fingers over a dark green sweater. “You did all this in a few hours?”

“The king’s household has survived wars, coronations, and six visiting Alpha councils. We can manage clothing.”

Dominic made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh.

A narrow case rested on the dressing table. Inside lay a silver bracelet set with the same black moonstone as the one beside the entrance. It was beautiful without looking like something designed to announce its price.

“It carries the villa’s ward mark,” Mrs. Lane explained. “The house will find you if you’re injured, and Crown wards will recognize you as part of His Majesty’s household. It will not track you beyond royal property unless you call for help.”

She said the last part while looking directly at Dominic.

“I gave the same instruction,” he said.

“I know, Your Majesty. I thought Miss Whitmore might prefer to hear it from someone who did not write her contract.”

I liked her immediately.

Dominic lifted the bracelet from the case. “May I?”

I held out my wrist.

He fastened it carefully. The stone warmed against my pulse, and the silver light inside it moved once, like an eye opening. His fingers lingered beneath my wrist while my wolf pressed toward him.

“You had all this done before I signed,” I said.

“Before dinner.”

“You didn’t know I’d come.”

“No.” His thumb dragged once over the inside of my wrist. “I brought you here with nothing waiting for you except one of my shirts. I wasn’t doing that again.”

The simple admission carried more weight than the case of jewelry or the full wardrobe. Dominic had remembered me in this house when I had been trying not to remember him anywhere.

Mrs. Lane dismissed the staff and showed me the bathroom, the call panel, and the doors the moonstone now unlocked for me. When she finally left, the silence became aware of us.

I found another door beside the wardrobe. Dominic’s scent slipped through the narrow gap around the frame.

“Your room is through there.”

“Yes. The lock is on your side.”

I tested it. The bolt moved easily beneath my hand. “You could have put me anywhere in this house.”

Dominic leaned against the frame. “I had Lane start the east suite.”

“And?”

“I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

His jaw flexed. For once, Dominic had no polished answer ready.

“Because it was too far from me.”

The words settled between us.

Dominic dragged a hand over his face. “You called tonight, and I was out of a council meeting before you finished saying Rosalie’s name. I keep telling myself to step back. Then you leave a room, and my wolf follows your scent to the door. I told an eight-hundred-year-old wardstone about you after knowing you for a few hours. I don’t know what the hell this is, Elle.”

My wolf shoved against my skin, but for once I did not fight her. “Good.”

He stared at me.

“Mine’s been clawing the hell out of me since the hotel. At least now I know yours is just as bad.”

Dominic crossed the room and caught my hip. He pressed his forehead to mine, his fingers digging in before he deliberately loosened them.

“You’re exhausted,” he said.

“I’m also tired of you deciding what I can handle.”

His breath warmed my mouth. “Those are not mutually exclusive.”

“Thirty seconds of space, remember?”

He swore and stepped back anyway, looking toward the black swimsuit Mrs. Vale had placed beside the robe. “The pool is heated. Take as long as you need.”

He made it to the connecting door, stopped with his hand on the frame, and looked back.

“Thirty seconds?” I asked.

“Less this time.”

I changed after he forced himself into his room. The swimsuit showed more skin than I usually dared, but I was done hiding from a man who could smell exactly what he did to me. I tied the robe and followed the spiral stairs to the roof.

Steam rolled across the rooftop pool beneath the moon. Old pack shrines rose among the capital’s towers, their silver crescents catching the light while Crown patrols moved like dark shadows along the streets below.

Dominic stood at the water’s edge in black swim shorts. He turned before my bare foot touched the first tile.

His wolf had been listening for me.