ログインChapter 050CASSIANWhen I woke up, Cecilia was completely spread out on me.One leg thrown over mine, both arms wrapped around my torso like she had decided in her sleep that I was not going anywhere and had taken precautions. Her cheek was pressed flat against my chest and her hair had come loose and was everywhere and her breathing was the deep even kind of someone who had not slept this well in a while.I looked at the window.The light outside had gone orange and low. We had slept through the entire afternoon without either of us noticing it happen.I looked back down at her.I kissed her forehead and kept my lips there for a moment."Baby." I shook her gently. "Wake up."She made a sound that was not a word and pressed her face harder into my chest."Cecilia."Nothing."The judgement is this evening."She stirred, shifted and turned her face up toward mine and yawned. Wide and completely unguarded, directly in my face, and then blinked at me with those half-open grey-green eyes
Chapter 049CECILIAI had barely stepped through the chamber door when he came in behind me.I turned around and he was already inside, closing the door with one hand, looking completely unbothered by the fact that he had followed me without being invited."The judgement is this evening," he said, moving toward the table. "Dress well and make a presence.""I was going to anyway.""I know." He leaned against the table. "Also send for the seamstress when you have time. The wolf induction is next week. You need something made for it."I looked at him with the particular expression I reserved for when he said things that were entirely correct but delivered like he had just thought of them himself."Are you the Alpha of the house now?"He grinned. "And you are the Luna of the house. We both give instructions here."I pressed my lips together but the smile came through anyway and he saw it and looked satisfied with himself."Are you not going somewhere?" I moved further into the room. "You
Chapter 048CASSIANGrey brought him in just before midday.The servant was young. Younger than I expected, barely past his first shift by the look of him, with the kind of face that had not yet learned how to hide what it was feeling. He stood in the centre of my office with his hands at his sides and his eyes moving between me and Grey like he was trying to calculate which one of us was more dangerous.I let him stand there for a moment.Then I sat on the edge of my desk and looked at him."You have been leaving through the eastern gate at night," I said. "Multiple times. Who have you been meeting?"He swallowed."I am going to ask you once more," I said quietly. "And then Grey is going to ask you and he asks differently than I do."The servant looked at Grey.Grey looked back at him with absolutely nothing on his face."A man," the servant said quickly. "In the alley behind the grain store in the eastern market. I do not know his name. He never told me.""What did you give him?"
Chapter 046CASSIANI stepped closer and slid one hand to her waist and the other to the side of her neck and kissed her.Not quickly. Not the kind that was just a response to what she had asked for. I kissed her properly, slow and deep, my thumb moving along her jaw, and felt her hand come up and grip the front of my shirt and hold on.When I pulled back she was looking at me with slightly unfocused eyes and I smiled at her."Dinner," I asked.She blinked. "Sure, Yes."Grey had set it up exactly as I had asked. One table. Two settings. No other staff hovering except the maids who came to serve and left immediately after. Just us and the food and the quiet of the room.Cecilia sat across from me and looked around briefly and something in her face settled at the privacy of it.We ate.I watched her more than I ate and she noticed and did not say anything about it for a while. Then I reached across and held a piece of food out toward her mouth.She looked at it. Then at me."I am not a
Chapter 045CASSIANI was halfway down the corridor toward my chambers when Lincitius came around the corner from the opposite direction.I had noticed recently that he had been spending a lot of time near the library wing. Enough that it had registered as odd without me having the time to look at it properly. He was a man of routines and the library had not previously been one of them.He smiled when he saw me. "Alpha.""Do you need me for something?"He held out a folded set of papers. "The elders finished going through the orphanage report the Luna submitted and have approved it."I took the papers and looked at them briefly. "Good.""It needs your signature before it goes to the treasurer.""I will go through it and sign it this afternoon. If I do not find you before evening I will pass it to the treasurer myself."He nodded and then did not move, which meant there was more."What else?""Two things." He straightened slightly. "The new wolf coronation is two weeks out. The arrang
Chapter 044CECILIAI kept walking.Darcy fell into step beside me and the silence between us was the loaded kind, the kind that had words in it that had not been released yet."I am fine," I said before she could open her mouth."I did not say anything.""You were about to."She pressed her lips together and walked.After a moment she took a breath and I cut across it."Darcy. I am fine. If I want to tell you something I will tell you. Do not push me and do not be sensitive about it."She stopped walking.I stopped too and turned.Her face was steady but her jaw was tight. "I am not being sensitive. But I am also not going to be spoken to like that." She met my eyes directly. "If you do not want to tell me then fine. But do not be harsh with me for caring. I am not one of the pack members you need to intimidate."I looked at her.She was right and I knew it and she knew that I knew it.I turned and kept walking. "Come on. We are going to be late."She came. We walked the rest of the
Chapter 039CECILIAI could not move.He was walking toward me across the courtyard with that easy unhurried stride I had known my whole life and I was standing there completely rooted with my shawl still wrapped around my hands staring at him like he had appeared from nowhere.He reached me and pu
Chapter 038CECILIAI came out of the washroom wrapped in my towel and stopped.Cassian was on the other side of the room, shirtless, going through his exercises on the floor. Push ups, slow and controlled, his back flat and his arms steady. His hair had fallen forward over his face and his chest a
Chapter 037CECILIAThe market was Darcy's idea.She had knocked on the chamber door that evening with the expression she wore when she thought I needed air and was going to get me some whether I agreed or not. I had agreed. Partly because she was right and partly because I had been sitting with to
Chapter 036KATTIEI had been watching them for weeks.Every meal. Every training session. Every small moment in the corridor where he touched her waist or bent toward her ear and she pretended not to lean into it. I had been standing in corners and doorways cataloguing all of it and keeping my mou







