Chapter 6: Out of Grey

Ava's POV

I didn't sleep after that.

I lay in bed, listening for footsteps outside my door. Listening for breathing. Listening for any sign that Zephyr had come back, that one of them was still standing in the dark just outside my room, watching me through the wood like I was something that needed to be monitored.

Nothing came. Just silence and the distant sound of wind against the palace walls.

By the time pale gray light crept under my door, I had already built my rules.

Don't look at them. Don't smell them. Don't feel the bond. Keep your head down, do the work, and survive.

Simple. I could do simple.

I repeated the rules while I dressed. Repeated them while I walked to the supply closet and grabbed my mop and bucket. The east corridor was long and quiet and, most importantly, completely empty. The mop hit the floor in steady, even strokes. Back and forth. Back and forth. The rhythm helped. It meant I didn't have to think about last night. About Cax's hurt eyes. About the sound of a fist hitting my wall in the dark.

I reached the end of the corridor, turned around, and stopped.

Ryker was standing at the far end.

Arms crossed. Dark clothes. Those cold gray eyes moving over me slowly, like I was a problem he was still deciding how to solve. He wasn't walking toward me. Wasn't speaking. Just standing there, watching.

I turned back around and kept mopping.

He was still there when I reached the other end.

I turned again. My stomach turned with me.

He hadn't moved an inch. The bond in my chest hummed softly, warm and annoyingly pleased with itself. I ignored it. I ignored him. I put my head down and mopped the same section for the second time without realizing it until my lower back started aching from the angle.

I looked up.

Still there. Still watching.

"Are you going to stand there all morning?" My voice came out sharper than I planned.

"I'm standing in my own hallway." Completely calm. Almost bored.

"You're staring at me."

"I'm thinking."

"Think somewhere else, please."

"Keep working, Ava."

I opened my mouth. Nothing useful came out. I closed it again, turned around, and mopped the same already-clean stretch of floor for the third time. The bond pulsed warmly, like it was laughing at me. I pressed my lips together so hard they hurt.

When I finally looked up again, he was gone.

I stood there for a second, mop in hand, feeling stupidly disappointed. Which made me furious. I went back to work so aggressively that Leta found me twenty minutes later scrubbing a perfectly clean windowsill with a look on her face like she was scared to ask.

"Hard morning?" she said carefully.

"Fine." Scrub. "Everything is fine." Scrub. "Perfectly fine."

"Right." She handed me a fresh cloth. "The Alpha was watching you again, wasn't he."

It wasn't a question.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Leta smiled into her bucket and said nothing.

The rest of the shift dragged. Every corridor felt longer than it should. Every room felt smaller. I kept my head down, did my work, spoke to no one, and refused, very deliberately, to notice when the faint smell of pine drifted through a hallway I was cleaning. I certainly did not stop moving for three full seconds just because of it. That did not happen.

By the time my shift ended, my arms ached and my patience was completely gone. I dropped off my supplies, avoided Leta's knowing look, and walked straight to my room.

The plate was sitting right outside my door.

I crouched down and looked at it. Hot food. Real food. Rice, stewed meat, something that smelled deeply, aggressively good. The kind of meal that took time and intention. I stared at it for a long moment, then picked it up and carried it inside.

Earlier, while scrubbing near the kitchens, I had mentioned to Leta that I hadn't eaten a proper meal in weeks. That I kept dreaming about stewed meat. A small, careless comment, the kind you make without thinking. I hadn't imagined anyone else was close enough to hear it.

I sat on the edge of my bed and ate every single bite.

I was absolutely furious about how good it tasted.

When I finished, I set the plate by the door and peeled off my uniform. My feet hurt. My shoulders hurt. I wanted to hang up my dress and sleep for ten years without dreaming about gray-eyed Alphas or humming bond marks or any of it.

I opened the wardrobe.

I went very still.

My clothes were gone. Every gray dress. Every worn apron. Every tired, colorless thing I owned, gone. In their place hung fabric I had only ever seen through market windows I couldn't afford to enter. Soft colors, deep greens, warm creams, a dress the color of dark honey with a neckline that was simple but deliberate. Blouses that looked like they would feel gentle instead of scratchy. Trousers with actual shape to them.

My hand reached out on its own and touched the nearest sleeve.

Soft. Softer than anything I had ever owned.

I yanked my hand back like the fabric had burned me.

I pushed everything aside, checking behind it, below it, searching for one single gray dress, one familiar worn-out thing that was actually mine.

Nothing.

Then I saw it. Tucked at the very bottom of the wardrobe, folded flat and pushed just slightly under the hanging clothes like it had been placed there carefully. On purpose.

A small piece of paper.

I picked it up. The handwriting was sharp and pressed hard into the page, the letters clean and certain, written by someone who had never second-guessed anything in their life.

Stop pretending you belong in gray. — R