TABOO (A DEAL WITH THE SHADOW ALPHA) のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 111 - チャプター 115

ADDISONI called Devin first to tell him about my plans with Axel, I chose him because it was just so much easier. I had sat on my sofa with my phone and my coffee , in a mug I was holding with very deliberate care — and called my brother and told him I was going to Greece for a few weeks, that I needed some time away, that everything was fine but I just needed space and quiet and the particular kind of reset that only came from being somewhere that wasn't this city for a while.Devin had said, after about four seconds of silence, "Is Axel going with you?""Yes.""Okay." And that had been essentially the whole of his reservation. "Take care of yourself. Call me when you get there.""That's it?" I said. "That's all you want to know?""Addie," he said, with the calm of someone who had spent thirty years being the most emotionally intelligent person in a family that didn't value emotional intelligence, "you sound better than you've sounded in months. I don't need the details. Just call

ADDISON We went outside, Axel walked me through the basics first, which I appreciated even if Khyra was vibrating with impatience. How to let the speed come naturally rather than forcing it. How to distribute my weight differently than I used to. How to feel the difference between human instinct and wolf instinct and let the second one inform the first.I listened carefully.Then we walked to the far end of the lawn and he pointed to the old stone wall at the opposite end, maybe three hundred meters away, the oak tree growing beside it."There," he said. "That's the finish. Ready?"I looked at the distance. Felt Khyra assess it with the particular focused attention of something that had been born knowing how to run."Khyra and I are going to absolutely kick your ass," I said.Axel looked at me. Then at the finish line. Then back at me with an expression I couldn't immediately read. "Who's Khyra?""My wolf," I said. "I named her. Don't be a jealous bean.""I'm not—"I started running.

ADDISON.She opened the door, put her hand gently on my back, and guided me through it.And then she pulled the door closed behind me.The room was extraordinary.I didn't fully take it in immediately — I was looking for him, scanning, and found him at the same moment that the details of the room reached me. Candles everywhere, hundreds of them it seemed, on every surface, casting everything in warm gold. Flowers — white and green and deep red, arranged with care throughout the space. The smell of them mixing with the candle wax and the old stone of the building and underneath everything the faint salt of the sea coming through a window somewhere.And Axel.Standing in the center of it, in a suit — dark, perfectly fitted, the kind of thing he wore when he was being deliberate about something. His hands were at his sides and he was looking at me with an expression that I had seen pieces of before, in different moments, but never quite assembled like this — all of it present at once, no