Chapter 5

Lila's POV

Every person who walked out of the King's office looked like they'd survived something they didn't want to talk about.

I'd been sitting in the waiting area for three hours. The chairs were hard leather, the lighting was white, and the receptionist hadn't looked up from her screen once. Candidates went in polished and confident and came out different. A woman in a silk blouse walked past me without her folder. A man in a tailored suit loosened his tie before he'd reached the elevator.

Nobody came out smiling.

It was stressful even just to watch.

I smoothed the front of my blazer. Secondhand, navy blue, a loose thread on the left cuff that I'd trimmed with my teeth in the bathroom ten minutes ago. My blouse was white, ironed that morning on the apartment floor because I didn't own an ironing board. My heels were the one good pair I'd owned for three years.

I told myself this was just a means to an end. Get the job, access the events, find Luca's father. If I didn't get hired, I'd try something else. There was always something else.

My name was the last on the list. Maybe because I'm a rogue now.

The glass ceiling for rogues was real. I'd outworked every person in my office, earned top reviews three years running, and watched pack-connected wolves leap ahead of me.

By the time Eli called me in, the waiting room was empty.

"Lila Renard?" He held the door open. "You're up."

The office was enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows on two walls, a desk the size of my kitchen table at the far end, and enough empty floor between the door and the chair to make you feel small. That was the point.

Kael sat behind the desk. He didn't stand when I entered. He didn't smile.

He watched me cross the room the way you watch something you haven't decided about yet.

I sat down and folded my hands in my lap. My heart was hammering, but my face was steady. I'd learned a long time ago how to keep the panic inside.

He was bigger in person than he'd been on the screen. Broader through the shoulders, harder in the jaw. His eyes were darker than they'd looked on television, and there was something behind them that made my wolf stir for the first time in months.

I ignored it. He was my sister's fiance and my potential boss. Whatever my wolf was doing, she could stop.

"You're a rogue for five years," he said. Not a question.

"Yes."

He flipped a page in my file without looking down. "Before that, you were registered to a Gamma family in the eastern territories. You left."

"I did."

"Why?"

I met his eyes. "That's personal. I'm choosing not to answer." I kept my voice even. "I left my pack voluntarily. The reasons are my own. I'd rather show you what I can do than explain where I came from."

Silence. Neither of us moved.

Then he leaned back in his chair. "Go ahead."

I talked him through my record. Three years of event coordination, budget management, vendor negotiations. I'd organized a regional trade summit that came in under budget and ahead of schedule. I laid out the numbers, the logistics, the crisis management, and I watched his face for any sign that he was listening.

He gave me nothing. His expression stayed flat, his pen still, his eyes unreadable. The only sound was the clock on the far wall.

When I finished, he closed the file.

"I don't hire people with flaws in their background," he said. "But if you can tell me why you left your pack, maybe I can clear you for this position."

Something sank in my chest. But it sank for only a second.

There were times I told my perious coworkers my whole experience and they just turned into gossip in the tea room.

That's why I know if an employer wants gossip more than my job abilities, maybe it's not the right place.

"Then I appreciate your time." I stood and pushed the chair back. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

I turned toward the door. I made it three steps.

"Sit down."

I stopped. Turned around.

He was watching me with something sharp in his expression. Not anger. Not amusement. Interest.

"You're hired," he said.

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Your record speaks for itself. You built a career from nothing, as a rogue, with no pack name and no connections." He set the file down. "That told me more about who you are than any explanation about your past."

He paused. "I wanted to see if you'd bend. You didn't. That's the quality I need."

I stood in the middle of the room, not sure whether to thank him or throw a chair at him. My face must have shown it, because the corner of his mouth twitched.

"You start Monday," he said. He was already reaching for the next stack of papers. "Eli will give you the details. I need someone who can handle pressure without cracking. Don't make me regret this."

I swallowed the five things I wanted to say and picked the safest one. "Thank you. I won't."

I walked to his desk to collect the folder Eli had mentioned. Kael was already reading something else, pen moving across a page.

"Thank you," I said again, quieter this time. "Really."

He glanced up. And then something changed.

His pen stopped. His nostrils flared, and the muscles in his jaw went tight. He gripped the edge of the desk with both hands, and when his eyes found mine again, they were different. Sharper. Searching.

"Have we met?" His voice dropped low. Not a polite question. A demand.

"No," I said. "I don't think so."

"There's a scent on you." He stood slowly, and the full height of him blocked the window light. "A child's scent. Faint. But it's there."

My pulse kicked hard. I didn't have a smell any more, but my son did. "My son. He's four. I held him before I came here."

His hand closed around my wrist. Not rough. But the heat of his palm burned through my sleeve.

"Why does it feel familiar?" He asked.

"I...I don't know." I stepped back. Maybe my wolf was also surprised at King Kael's move, I very faintly felt my wolf for the first time in months.

"Why does my wolf know that scent?" He wasn't asking me anymore. He was asking something inside himself, and whatever it answered made his eyes go dark at the edges.