Chapter 26: Three Guards and a Locked Door

Ava's POV

I woke up because someone was in my room.

Not a sound exactly. More like a change in the air, the specific density of a space that had been empty and was no longer empty. I had developed this particular sensitivity at my old pack house, where empty rooms were safe and occupied ones required immediate assessment.

I opened my eyes.

Ryker was standing at the foot of my bed.

I screamed aloud.

It was more of a sharp, startled sound that lasted approximately one second before I got control of it, but it was absolutely a scream and it came out before I could stop it.

"Don't do that," Ryker said.

"You're in my room." I sat up fast, pulling the blanket up. "While I was sleeping. You're standing at the foot of my bed while I was sleeping."

"I knocked."

"I was asleep. Knocking doesn't work on sleeping people."

"It worked eventually." He was fully dressed, dark clothes, hair actually combed, which meant this was official enough that he had prepared for it. "Are you awake now?"

"Am I?." I stared at him. "Am I awake?. You're asking me that."

"You're talking so presumably yes." He glanced at the door. "We need to move quickly. Get dressed."

"You cannot be in my room while I get dressed."

"I'll turn around."

"You need to leave the room entirely."

"I'm not leaving the room." He said it like it was a completely reasonable position. "There are three guards outside that door and a potential security breach in this corridor and I am not standing in a hallway while you take twenty minutes to find your shoes."

"I don't take twenty minutes to find my shoes."

"Get dressed, Ava."

I grabbed the pillow from beside me and threw it at him.

His hand came up and caught it. It was a clean catch, no fumble, without even shifting his weight. He looked at the pillow and then at me.

He set the pillow down on the end of the bed carefully.

I felt warmth move up my neck for reasons I refused to address at four in the morning.

"Turn around," I said.

He turned around.

I got out of bed and dressed as quickly as I could manage, which was fast because three years as an omega in a pack house had taught me that the ability to be ready quickly was genuinely useful. I pulled on dark clothes, the same ones from last night, found my shoes on the first try, and was done in ninety seconds.

"Done," I said.

He turned back around. Something about the set of his expression suggested he had expected this to take longer.

"Good," he said. "Sit down for a moment."

"I thought we were moving quickly."

"Sit down."

I sat on the edge of the bed. He remained standing, which put him above me in a way I didn't love, but I was also barefoot at four in the morning and not in a position to negotiate everything simultaneously.

"Ryder's informant is inside the palace," he said. "We don't know who it is yet. What we do know is that your location may have been passed to him. This corridor is no longer secure."

I looked at my hands for a moment. "How certain are you."

"Certain enough that I'm in your room at four in the morning."

That was a fair point.

"Where are you moving me?" I asked.

"Safer quarters."

"Where."

He held my eyes. "My wing."

I stood up immediately. "No."

"Ava."

"Absolutely not. No." I picked up the cloth bag that held the few things I actually owned and held it in front of me. "That is not a protection arrangement. That is something else entirely and the answer is no."

"The answer is not no." His voice was patient in a way that suggested the patience was constructed and not natural. "My wing has the best security in the palace. Four guard posts, two locked corridor doors, and direct access to the emergency exits that even most of my staff don't know about. Your room here has one door and a window."

"I'm fine with one door."

"Ryder's man has your room number, Ava." He said it quietly. Just that. Just the fact, sitting between us in the dim room.

I held my bag and said nothing.

"He knows what corridor you're in," Ryker continued. "He knows which door. The only advantage we have right now is that he doesn't know we know that, which means we have a window to move you before he uses the information."

"And if I say no?"

"I'm hoping you won't."

"But if I do."

He looked at me steadily. "Then I stay in this room with you until the delegation leaves, and we have a very long two days."

I looked at the room. At the single door and the small window and the thin walls that I had been aware of as a problem since the moment I arrived. Then I looked at him.

"Where exactly in your wing," I said.

"A room."

"Which room."

He was quiet for just a moment. "Between mine and Cax's."

I stared at him.

"Zephyr will be across the hall," he added.

Ryker looked at me.

Something changed in his face. It was the ghost of one. The shape that a smile left behind when someone was trying very hard not to let it land.

"Welcome to protection, little mate," he said. "It's loud here."