CALLUM’S POV

"Let’s talk." I repeated when she didn’t move.

I heard her pause behind me.

"Now?" She asked.

"Now." I said as I pulled out the chair across from mine and looked at it and then at her. "Sit down."

She came into the cellar and sat while I poured her a small glass and set it in front of her but she looked at it and then at me and didn’t touch it.

"Where did you go?" I asked.

"For a walk." She said. "I needed air."

I looked at her.

"Fresh air." She clarified. "The mansion was quiet and I needed to be outside for a bit."

I held her gaze for a moment. She held mine back steadily and her face was composed and gave nothing away but I had known her long enough now to know the difference between her natural composure and the kind she put on when she was hiding something.

This was the second kind.

"How long?" I asked.

"A couple of hours." She shrugged.

"Where did you go specifically?" I pressed.

"Around the pack." She said vaguely. "The residential paths. Down toward the east side."

I looked at her hands on the table.

The right one had a bandage on the palm.

A frown pulled at my lips. "What happened to your hand?" I scowled.

She looked at it like she hadn’t seen it before. "I tripped." She replied. "On the path. Caught myself on the ground."

"Let me see." I said.

"It’s fine—"

"Keisha." I looked up at her.

She put her hand on the table and I looked at the bandage. Someone had wrapped it properly, not a rushed job. Someone who knew what they were doing.

"Who wrapped this?" I questioned.

"A woman." She told me. "I tripped near her house and she brought me inside and cleaned it up." She paused. "Her son’s bicycle nearly hit me. I helped stop it."

I looked at her. "A runaway bicycle?"

"He couldn’t stop it." She nodded. "The brake lever was stiff."

"You chased a runaway bicycle?" I sighed.

"I ran after it." She said. "There’s a wall at the end of that path. He would have gone over."

I looked at her face. She was hiding something.

"Keisha." I called.

"The boy was fine." She quickly said. "I’m fine. The arm is just a scrape."

"That’s not what I was going to say." I shook my head.

She looked at me.

"Something is going on with you." I pointed out. "Something has been going on for a while and you keep not saying it and honestly, I keep not pushing but I think we’ve run out of road on that." I held her gaze. "What is it?"

The cellar was quiet.

She looked at her glass, picked it up but put it back down without drinking.

"It’s not nothing." She said finally.

"I know it’s not nothing." I pressed.

"And I’m going to tell you." She looked up at me. "Both of you. You and Dane together." She looked at me. "Not tonight. I need—" She stopped. "I need a day. Just one more day to figure out how to say it."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"Right. Okay. Take your time."

She nodded.

I picked up the papers in front of me and shuffled them back into order. "Tell me something else then." I said. "Since we’re sitting here."

She looked at me. "Like what?"

"Anything." I said. "How are you settling? Into the mansion. Nadia isn’t driving you completely insane?"

She almost smiled. "Nadia is—" She paused. "She’s a lot."

"I know." I smiled. "She’s always been a lot."

"She’s also the best person I know." She shrugged. "So."

"Yes." I agreed. "She is." I looked at my glass. "She’s like her mother in that way. Her mother was the loudest person in any room she walked into and somehow also the person everyone most wanted to be near." I paused. "I used to tell her she was a lot too."

Keisha looked at me. "What did she say?"

"She said I was too little." I let out a huff. "And that we balanced each other out."

Something moved through Keisha’s face. Soft and careful. "She sounds like she was wonderful." She smiled.

"She was." I said simply.

We were quiet for a moment.

"Can I ask you something?" Keisha suddenly said.

"Go ahead." I nodded.

"When the elders pushed for you to take a Luna." She started. "Did you ever want to? Before they pushed. Did you ever think about it yourself."

I looked at the wall.

"Yes." I admitted. "In the abstract. The way you think about things that are theoretically possible but don’t feel real yet." I paused. "And then Vanessa arrived and it started feeling very real and very wrong."

"Because of her specifically?" She watched me.

"Because of the circumstances." I said. "Because it was arranged and pushed and presented to me like a solution to a problem rather than—" I stopped.

"Rather than a choice." She finished.

"Yes." I said.

She looked at her glass. "Would it have been different?" She asked. "If it had been your choice."

I looked at her.

She was looking at her glass and her face was carefully neutral. I wanted her to look at me but she wasn’t going to look up and that was probably intentional.

"Yes." I said quietly. "It would have been very different."

She looked up then.

We looked at each other across the small table in the wine cellar.

She pushed her chair back. "I should go find Nadia before she comes looking." She looked away.

"She went to a birthday party." I said. "She won’t be back until late."

"Then I should eat something." She bit her lip as she stood. "Thank you for the wine I didn’t drink."

"Anytime." I smirked.

She smiled at that. Then she walked out and I listened to her footsteps go up the stairs before the house settled back into quiet.

I sat there for a moment. Then I picked up my phone and called Dane.

He answered immediately. "What?"

"She’s back." I told him. "She went out alone for a few hours. She won’t say where."

"Is she alright?" He asked.

"She has a bandage on her hand." I said. "From a fall she says."

"You don’t believe her." He pointed out. "Fair enough."

"I believe the fall." I said. "I don’t believe the walk." I paused. "She said she’ll tell us something tomorrow. Both of us together."

There was silence. "Tomorrow?"

"Yes." I said.

Another silence followed.

"Okay."

"Come by tomorrow evening." I said. "We’ll talk to her together."

"Done." Then he hung up.

I sat in the wine cellar alone and thought about the scent I had noticed from Keisha. She had this... Thing about her lately.

Tomorrow.

With a sigh, I turned back to the documents on the table and picked up my pen.

Dane appeared in the doorway twenty minutes later with a folder under his arm and a frown.

"Sit." I nodded to the seat.

He sat and dropped the folder on the table. "Vanessa’s attendants." He said. "I ran the checks."

"And?" I raised a brow.

"Both names are real." He sighed. "Both have legitimate employment records with her father’s household going back three years." He paused. "But one of them— a man named Gregor— has a secondary employment record that’s interesting."

"Interesting how?" I frowned.

"He did private security work two years ago for a firm that contracted to Osric." He said. "Specifically to Osric. Not the council. Not the pack administration. Osric personally."

I looked at him. "So Vanessa’s attendant used to work for Osric." I frowned. .

"Used to." Dane said. "Or still does and the Vanessa employment is the cover."

I sat back. "And this is the person who was outside Keisha’s window."

"His build matches what she described." Dane said. "Tall, broad, dark coat." He looked at me. "I can’t prove it yet. But you get it."

"Yes." I agreed.

"Osric hasn’t made any unusual moves." Dane informed. "Nothing I can point to. He’s been careful. Just going to council sessions, his quarters, nowhere he shouldn’t be."

"Which means he knows we’re watching." I muttered.

"Yes." Dane said. "He knows." He paused. "What do you want to do about Gregor?"

I thought about it. "Nothing yet." I said. "Don’t let him know we’ve identified him. Don’t change the patrol patterns. Don’t give Vanessa any reason to think we’ve found anything." I looked at Dane. "Let them think they’re still in the dark."

Dane nodded. "And Osric?"

"Keep watching." I told him. "He’ll move eventually. He always does."

Dane stood and picked up the folder. "There’s one more thing." He said.

"What?" I said.

"The door." He said. "The new one is being fitted tomorrow morning. Keisha can go back to her house by the afternoon."

I said nothing.

He looked at me. "Unless there’s a reason she should stay longer." He said carefully.

I looked at the documents on the table.

"The afternoon is fine." I said, my voice tight.

He looked at me for one more second, then he walked out.

I sat alone in the wine cellar and thought about the scent I couldn’t identity from her.

Tomorrow.

Or whenever she was ready.