Chapter 4: He Was Hiding Something

I saw him before he saw me.

That was the only reason I had a second to decide what to do with my face before he looked up.

He was standing outside the library, slightly off to the side where the path curved toward the east entrance, speaking to someone I didn't recognise. A man, older, with the kind of bearing that made you feel like you were standing in the way of something important even when you were just passing by. Lucian had his back mostly to me and his head bent slightly, his voice too low for me to hear. Whatever they were saying, it was not a casual conversation. The other man nodded once, something that looked more like an acknowledgment than an agreement, and then he left quickly, without looking back.

Lucian turned and found me standing on the path.

For a moment neither of us moved.

He looked the same. That was my first thought, which was a stupid thought because it had only been a week and a half and people didn't change in a week and a half. But I had half expected him to look different somehow, to look like someone who had stayed away without explanation, maybe grow a horn or two. But of cause, he just looked like Lucian. His Icy eyes steadily looking at me like I was the only fixed point in his line of sight.

"Lena." he said.

"You're back." I said it flatly. Not a question.

"I was going to come find you today."

"You've had ten days." I said. "You could have found me any of them."

He didn't flinch but something shifted behind his eyes. He took a step toward me and I didn't step back, mostly because stepping back would have felt like admitting something I wasn't ready to admit.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

I wanted to say no. I had rehearsed saying no approximately forty times over the past week, in the shower, on the walk to class, lying awake at two in the morning with the book still unopened on my floor. I had a whole speech prepared about what it meant to promise someone you were coming back and then not come back and then show up outside a library like nothing had happened.

"Fine." I said.

We found a bench near the old oak at the edge of the library courtyard. I made sure I didn't look at him to see the expression on his face when we sat and I put a careful distance between us.

I waited.

He opened his mouth. Then he closed it. He pressed his hands together between his knees and looked at the ground for a moment and then back at me.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner." he said.

"Why didn't you?"

He opened his mouth again.

"And don't tell me you got caught up." I said. "Jake already used that one."

Something that was almost a smile crossed his face and disappeared. "There were things I had to handle at home. Things that needed my attention."

"What things?"

A pause. Small but there. "Pack things."

I looked at him. "Pack things." I repeated.

"Yes."

What pack thing does a mere wolf had to take care of that took over a week. The week I needed him. When he wasn't even a pack warrior.

"That's all you're going to give me." I asked giving my an icy look.

He met my eyes and held them and I watched him have an entire internal conversation with himself that I was not invited to. I could see it happening, the way something moved across his face and then got locked down, the way he seemed to be choosing every word with a precision that didn't match the easiness he usually wore around me.

He was hiding something.

I had known Lucian long enough to know the difference between a private man and a man with a secret. He had always been the first thing. Reserved, careful with words, slow to open. I had learned to read the space around what he said as much as what he actually said. But this was different. This was the second thing and it sat between us on that bench as clearly as if he had put it there himself.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Redirecting. I noticed it.

"My aunt died, then you disappeared." I said. "No, I'm not okay."

"I know." His voice dropped. "I'm sorry, Lena. I should have been here."

"Yes." I said simply. "You should have."

He took that without defending himself, which was the most Lucian thing he could have done and also the thing that made it hardest to stay angry at him. I looked away toward the old oak and its shadow stretching long across the courtyard stones.

"I found the book." I said. "In her things. She told me to find it, on the phone that night." I paused. "I haven't opened it yet."

He was quiet for a moment. "Are you going to?"

"I think I have to eventually." I looked back at him. "She said to stay away from Alphas."

Something crossed his face then. Quick and unreadable and gone before I could hold onto it.

"She was always cautious about wolves." I said, watching him. "Did you know that? She didn't even know you existed because of that. I didn't know how to tell her."

Lucian said nothing.

"Does that mean anything to you?" I asked. "Anything at all?"

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, "I don't know. You might have to read the book, Lena."

He didn't know about that, but that wasn't what matters right now. If he wasn't going to explain, then I had no reason to drag this talk.

I stood up picking my bag up with me.

“I'm staying with Iris. Do not approach me next time without an explanation. One that is solid.” I said walking off without waiting to hear if he agrees or not.