KEISHA’S POV

I couldn’t focus.

I had been staring at the same document for twenty minutes and the words kept leaving my brain before they could stick. I blinked, scrolled back to the top and tried again.

Nothing.

With a sigh, I pushed back from my desk and pressed my fingers to my eyes.

Every time I let my guard down even slightly, my brain went straight back to that apartment. The dim room. His hand in my hair. The door handle turning under my fingers. The slight feeling of freedom. I had been running from that on a loop since yesterday after the trial and it wasn’t getting better.

"You look terrible." A voice from the door sounded.

I looked up.

Nadia was leaning in my office doorway with two cups of tea, her hair still slightly damp from a morning shower. She pushed off the frame, came inside and set one of the cups on my desk before she sat down.

"Thank you." I replied flatly.

"I mean it in a caring way." She pulled her feet underneath herself in the chair. "How did you sleep?"

"Fine."

She gave me a look and I sighed.

"Badly." I admitted.

"I knew it." She wrapped both hands around her cup. "You should have let me stay."

"I needed to be alone."

"You needed to not be alone, that’s the problem." She studied me over the rim of her cup. "Keisha. Talk to me, please. I’m worried."

I looked at my screen. "There’s nothing to talk about."

"There’s plenty to talk about."

"I’m fine, Nadia." I insisted.

The last thing I needed was to recount that event in detail.

She was quiet for a moment. Then she leaned forward. "Are you sure he didn’t hurt you? Like properly hurt you?"

My chest tightened. Not physically anyway. "No." I said. "He didn’t get that far."

She exhaled and looked down at her cup.

Feeling more self conscious, I turned my chair slightly toward her. "Can I ask you something?"

"Always." She nodded.

"Do you think I’m just..." I searched for the word. "Unlucky? With men?"

She looked up, brows furrowed.

"Riven." I offered. "Then Orin." I let out a short sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. "I’m starting to think I have genuinely terrible instincts."

Nadia was quiet for a second, her expression filled with sympathy. "Riven was a coward and Orin was a liar." She deadpanned. "Neither of those things are your instincts. Those are just men being terrible."

"I picked them both." I let out a self deprecating laugh.

"Riven picked you first." She pointed out. "And Orin picked you before you even knew he existed. You weren’t choosing them really, you were being chosen and both of them were dishonest about who they were." She tilted her head. "That’s not bad luck or whatever you think. That’s just— people being worse than they look."

I looked at my desk, fiddling with my hands.

"You have good instincts." She said firmly. "You knew something was wrong at Orin’s before it got bad. You tried to run."

"Not fast enough." I looked up at her with a tight smile.

"Fast enough that you got out of that room." She leaned forward. "That matters, that’s it."

I said nothing, biting down on my life.

She reached across the desk and squeezed my hand once. "Take the day off seriously. The files will survive without you, I’ll let the front table know."

I looked at the screen,back at the document I had read three times without absorbing a single word.

Maybe she was right

"Yeah." I said quietly. "Okay."

****************

The estate library was one of those places I had discovered by accident two weeks into living here and had kept mostly to myself since.

It was tucked at the back of the main building, high ceilings and a smell of old books that felt like home.

I found a corner, pulled three books I had no real intention of reading and settled in.

For a while it worked, I stared at the pages, letting my mind tune out everything else.

An hour passed, or maybe more but I wasn’t listening again.

"You’re holding that upside down." I heard a sudden voice.

I startled, almost dropping the book.

Dane was standing at the end of my row with his hands in his pockets, looking at the book in my hands with a raised brow.

I looked down.

He wasn’t wrong.

Oh.

I turned it the right way around, saying nothing and he moved further into the row and leaned against the shelf across from me like he had been planning to come to the library all along which I seriously doubted.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Looking for something." He said vaguely.

"In the fiction section? Didn’t peg you as the type."

He glanced at the shelf behind him. "Hm." He looked back at me. "You took the day off."

"Observant." I forced a smile.

"How are you?" He took a step closer, concern flashing in his eyes.

"Fine."

He just stared at me blankly because he knew I was lying. "I’m going out on patrol in an hour. Evening round. You could come."

I stared at him and for a second, I was tempted to say yes.

But then, I remembered my sister— Lyra had been heartbroken after they broke up, I had held her hand and told her she would be fine..

What was I even doing? He hurt my sister. Why did I keep failing to resist?

"I’m not interested in patrols." I tilted my chin.

He held my gaze. "I’ll get you something to eat after."

"I’m not hungry."

Dane looked like he was about to say something but he simply sighed, nodding. "Okay." He then walked back out of the row.

I sat there with my book and stared at the shelf across from me while I told myself I had made the right call.

What I needed now was to get my shit together.

I packed up my things twenty minutes later and headed back toward my house.

I was halfway across the grounds when I became aware of footsteps behind me.

Someone was following me. But I wasn’t scared— the mate bond tugged at me insistently. Meaning Dane was following me quietly.

I didn’t turn around once.

He followed me all the way to the main path and I didn’t acknowledge it and he didn’t also close the distance.

Just as I got to the curve of the residential building, I nearly walked into Becca— the cook.

She came around the corner from the direction of the kitchens with a basket over one arm but pulled up short when she saw me, her face immediately shifting into something pitiful and concerned.

"Keisha." She reached out and touched my arm. "I heard what happened. Are you alright, love? We were all so worried—"

"I’m okay." I managed a smile. "Really, Becca. I’m okay."

She looked at me carefully. "You don’t look like you’ve eaten properly." She said it like an accusation. "Have you eaten today?"

My stomach chose that exact moment to answer for me with a loud growl.

Fuck.

Becca raised both eyebrows and I pressed my hand to my stomach, feeling my face go warm. "I had tea this morning."

"Tea?" She repeated flatly. "Come." She was already turning back toward the kitchens, not waiting to see if I was following. "I’ll fix you something proper. Don’t argue with me."

I glanced back down the path. Dane had stopped at the curve, far enough back. He looked at me for a second,then at Becca’s retreating figure.

Something almost like amusement crossed his face.

Smug bastard.

I turned and followed Becca.