Lucian's Welcome

Dinner was a mistake.

Elena knew it the moment she walked into the dining room and every head turned. Ten Council members. A dozen candles. And at the center of the long table, Adrian, who looked up and went completely still.

She had changed into the only dress they could find in her size, deep green, simple, and far too flattering. His eyes moved from her shoulders to her waist and back to her face, slow and dark. Then he looked away, jaw tight, and stared at the wine glass in front of him like it might save him.

Good, she thought, annoyed at the small thrill. Suffer.

"Miss Vale," said a warm voice. "I've waited a long time to meet you."

A man had risen from the far end of the table. He was fifty or so, silver at the temples, handsome in a calm, scholarly way. He wore a gray suit and a thin silver ring on his right hand. His smile was kind.

"Lucian Hale," he said. "Adrian's adviser. And, if I may say so, his oldest friend."

"Lucian raised me," Adrian said from the head of the table. "After my mother died."

"The King flatters me. I only kept him from setting the house on fire." Lucian took Elena's hand and bowed over it. "You've been missed here, my dear. More than you know."

His hand was cool and dry. Elena smiled politely, and her skin crawled for no reason she could name.

"Thank you."

"I hope you'll let an old man help. This business with the rogues, the Council, the child..." He glanced toward the corner where Noah sat with two guards and a plate of plain pasta. "A pity there's so much suspicion. I hold no grudge, whatever the Council says. But I do think, for everyone's peace, there should be a simple test."

"A test?" Adrian said.

"For the boy. A paternity test. Quiet and discreet." Lucian spread his hands. "If he is yours, my king, you have an heir, and the pack will rejoice. If not, we can all move on."

The table murmured agreement.

Elena's pulse jumped. "My son is not a question."

"Of course not," Lucian said gently. "But he is a political one. Better to answer it ourselves than let the Council do it for us."

It sounded so reasonable. That was what bothered her.

Adrian said nothing for a moment. Then he rose, walked around the table and stopped at her chair. He didn't touch her. He didn't need to. Everyone in the room saw him stand at her shoulder, tall and dark and protective.

"No test," he said.

Lucian blinked. "My lord?"

"Not tonight. If Elena wants a test, she'll ask for one." His voice was calm. "She is not a suspect at my table."

Elena looked up at him. Their eyes met, and warmth spread through her chest before she could stop it.

"As you wish," said Lucian, bowing. But as he sat back down, Elena caught something on his face. It was fast, and it was gone.

It was not disappointment.

It was calculation.

Dinner dragged on. Elena barely touched her food. She was acutely aware of Adrian beside her, his knee an inch from hers, his arm along the back of her chair. When another Alpha leaned over to ask her a flirtatious question, Adrian's hand came down on the table, just a touch too hard, and the man backed away without finishing his sentence.

She hid a smile behind her glass.

"Careful," she murmured. "Your jealousy is showing."

"I don't get jealous."

"Your hand just cracked the table."

He looked down. A thin line ran through the wood. He cursed, very quietly.

She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

For the first time in five years, something in her chest felt light.

When the plates were cleared, she stood to collect Noah. He was already waiting by her chair, small and quiet, looking at something over her shoulder.

"Noah?"

He followed Lucian with his eyes as the man left the room, polite, gray, smiling at everyone.

"Mama," Noah whispered, pulling her down to his level. His small hand clutched her sleeve. "That man smells like the cold room."

Elena's blood turned to ice.

"What cold room, baby?"

But Noah only shivered, pressed his face into her neck, and said nothing more.