WHAT HER WOLF KNOWS

CHAPTER 29

My wolf woke at midnight.

Not with fear. Not with pain.

She rose through me slowly, like something that had been waiting a very long time for the right moment.

Mate.

I sat straight up in bed.

"No."

Mate.

"Absolutely not. Go back to sleep."

He is ours.

"He is Roman Draven. He's a man who signed a contract with me. That's all this is."

Mate.

I pressed both palms against my eyes.

"You're confused. We've had a terrible day. I found out I'm Moonborn, the man who recommended me has disappeared, and someone might have arranged my entire life before I even knew there was anything unusual about me."

Not confused.

"You're reaching for something familiar because everything else feels uncertain."

Not reaching. Knowing.

I lowered my hands.

"Then why now? Why not the first night? Why not when he held my hand in the clinic?"

Her answer came quietly.

You weren't listening.

A short, humorless laugh escaped me.

"Wonderful. Even my wolf thinks I'm an idiot."

You are afraid.

"Of course I'm afraid!"

My voice sounded too loud in the darkness.

I lowered it.

"I'm afraid this is real. I'm afraid you're right. And I'm even more afraid that it's one-sided."

My wolf didn't answer immediately.

I climbed out of bed and began pacing.

Roman had already lost someone he loved. Lyra's death still haunted him, even when he refused to speak about it. Whatever had existed between them, I knew grief didn't disappear simply because another person entered your life.

What if I was mistaking my growing attachment for something more?

What if my wolf was recognizing a bond that Roman didn't feel?

What if he did feel it but couldn't bear the thought of loving someone again?

That is not ours to decide, my wolf said.

"It becomes my problem when I'm the one who gets hurt."

Then ask him.

"I'm not asking him anything."

Mira.

"No. If I say it aloud, it becomes real. And if it's real, he'll have to answer. I don't want to watch him search for a gentle way to tell me I'm wrong."

You would rather hide?

"Until I understand what's happening, yes."

He will know.

"He won't."

My wolf didn't argue.

She simply waited, steady and certain, as though time belonged to her.

I returned to bed and pulled the blanket over myself.

I counted the ceiling tiles.

Then I counted them again.

Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the same invisible pull, as if something inside me had turned toward Roman and refused to turn away.

He is near.

"He's in his study."

No.

"Stop talking."

I lasted another hour.

At one-thirty, I threw off the blanket.

"Fine. Fresh air. That's all I need."

That is not all.

"It's all."

I pulled a sweater over my nightgown and slipped into the corridor.

The back stairs were quiet, their familiar creaks softened by the hour. I avoided Roman's wing and took the path toward the garden.

I needed space.

Silence.

Anything that would allow me to think without my wolf insisting that she had already discovered the answer.

The garden was cold and silver beneath the moonlight.

I made it twenty steps before someone spoke.

"Mira."

I stopped.

Roman stood beside the low stone wall, one hand resting against the stone. His shirt was untucked, his hair disordered, and the usual sharpness of his appearance had given way to something tired and uncertain.

My wolf went still.

Then she surged toward him.

There.

I swallowed.

"Roman."

"You're awake."

"I couldn't sleep."

"Neither could I."

For a moment, we simply looked at each other.

"Is it the investigation?" I asked.

"Partly." He glanced toward the darkened grounds. "My men are still searching for Edric. No word yet."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing."

"Do you think he left because he knew we were looking for him?"

"I don't know. It's possible he left before I called. It's also possible someone warned him." Roman's expression hardened. "Until we find him, everything is speculation."

I appreciated that he didn't pretend otherwise.

"I don't know whether that makes me feel better or worse."

"Neither do I."

The wind stirred the branches above us.

"You should be inside," he said. "It's cold."

"So should you."

"I'm fine."

"You're not wearing a coat."

He glanced down at himself.

"I noticed."

A faint smile touched his mouth.

"I haven't been paying much attention to the weather."

"Or anything else?"

His smile faded.

"Not much."

I tucked my hands into my sleeves.

I wanted to ask what he was thinking about. Edric? The Moonborn revelation? The possibility that someone had deliberately brought me into his life?

Instead, I asked the safest question.

"Are you worried about the investigation?"

"Yes."

"Just the investigation?"

He looked at me.

For a moment, I thought he might answer.

Then his gaze dropped to the stone wall.

"I was in my study, reading the same report for the third time. I couldn't concentrate. I got up, walked out here, and realized I hadn't decided to come."

"That sounds like a strange way to spend an evening."

"It has been a strange evening."

"A strange week."

"Yes."

His eyes returned to mine.

"And you?"

"What about me?"

"Why are you really out here?"

"I told you. I couldn't sleep."

"That might be true. It doesn't sound like the whole answer."

I looked away.

My wolf stirred beneath my skin.

Tell him.

Be quiet.

He is right there.

I know where he is.

Roman took a step toward me.

Heat swept through my chest.

It came so suddenly that my breath caught, and I reached for the wall to steady myself.

My wolf surged with a certainty that frightened me more than the sensation itself.

Mate.

I gripped the stone.

"Mira?"

"I'm fine."

His attention dropped to my hand.

"You're holding that wall like the ground is moving."

"It's slippery."

He glanced at the dry stone.

"It isn't."

I shot him a look.

"Would you stop arguing with me for five minutes?"

He immediately stepped back.

"All right."

The easy surrender surprised me.

He studied my face without coming closer.

"Did I frighten you?"

"No."

"Did I hurt you?"

"No."

"Then something happened when I moved toward you."

I said nothing.

His expression changed, the usual certainty giving way to something more vulnerable.

"I felt it too," he said.

My heart stumbled.

"What?"

"I'm not sure." He looked down at his hands. "When I came closer, something changed. I felt it before I understood what was happening."

I couldn't breathe properly.

My wolf pressed against my ribs, almost triumphant.

He knows.

He suspects, I told her. That's not the same thing.

Roman lifted his eyes.

"Mira, I don't know what this means. I don't want to assume anything about what you're feeling."

I stared at him.

The words I'd been trying to bury rose to my throat.

I could still lie.

I could say I was tired, that the pregnancy had made me emotional, that the stress of the investigation had left me unsettled.

All of it would be plausible.

All of it would keep me safe.

But I was tired of not knowing.

Tired of feeling as though my life had been shaped by secrets I hadn't been allowed to question.

Roman had promised to tell me the truth, even when it frightened him.

Perhaps I owed myself the same honesty.

"I don't understand what's happening to me," I whispered.

His expression softened.

"Then we don't have to name it tonight."

I swallowed.

"What if I want to?"

He went still.

For the first time since I'd known him, Roman Draven looked genuinely uncertain about what to say.

He took a slow breath.

"I want you to be able to tell me anything without worrying that I'll decide what it means before you've finished speaking."

The words reached somewhere inside me that I hadn't expected.

I looked at the man who had entered my life through a contract.

The man who had spent years believing control was the same as protection.

The man who was finally learning to leave space for my choices.

And I wondered whether the thing frightening me most was not that he might reject me.

It was that he might choose me, and I might have to admit how much I wanted him to.

"Roman."

"Yes?"

I struggled to find the words.

My wolf was quiet now.

Not because she had changed her mind, but because she was waiting for me to make my own choice.

I stepped away from the wall.

He didn't move toward me.

He let me decide how close I wanted to stand.

I stopped just within reach.

"There's something I need to ask you."

His eyes searched mine.

"Ask me."

I opened my mouth.

Then fear closed around the words.

Roman waited.

He didn't hurry me. He didn't reach for me or try to guess what I couldn't bring myself to say.

Finally, he spoke.

"Mira, when I came closer just now, did you feel something?"

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I could deny it.

I could pretend nothing had happened.

Instead, I held his gaze.

"Yes."

His breath caught.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then Roman took a careful breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough with uncertainty.

"Because I felt it too."

My wolf rose inside me, quiet and certain.

Mate.

I didn't say the word.

Not yet.

But for the first time, I wondered whether I was the only one afraid of what it meant.