Chapter 5

His eyes kept drifting back toward me.

In the past I would have told him to slow down.

Now I sat with my juice and looked at the table.

Vivienne picked up a glass and started walking toward me. Declan suddenly said, loud and blunt, "She doesn't drink."

Vivienne stopped mid-step. Her face went red. She sat back down and chewed her lip for a long time without saying anything.

And then.

The person next to me stepped away to take a call. Cain got up from the head of the table, walked over, and sat down in the empty seat beside me. He turned to talk to someone on his other side.

The Alpha from the other Pack laughed.

"Cain, you're young and successful. You must have a long history. Tell us, make us envious."

Cain smiled and turned back.

"I've been too busy these past few years. Honestly haven't spent much time on that."

He'd been drinking. His eyes had that slight red at the corners. He was relaxed in a way he wasn't usually, and as he talked he rested one hand on the back of my chair, half-surrounding me.

Too close.

My heart beat faster.

He kept talking, easy and unfocused. One hand played with his lighter on the table.

The other one stayed on my chair.

I could almost pick out a familiar scent from him. Something from long ago. Sweat and dust and being alive.

"So how many relationships have you had, Cain?" someone asked.

Cain tilted his head. He was quiet for a second.

Then I felt something on my arm.

Two fingers.

Following the line of nerve along the exposed back of my arm. Slow. Unhurried. Like they were just going for a walk.

I went still.

I did not move.

"One," he said, from just behind my left shoulder.

"She was scared. She ran."

Everyone laughed like it was a joke.

He didn't explain.

He just laughed along, quietly.

After dinner, the host Pack had arranged rooms for us. All on the same floor.

We rode the elevator up together.

Declan was unsteady on his feet. Vivienne held his arm. His eyes kept sliding over to me.

There was something in them. Grudge, maybe, or a kind of confusion that had taken too long to arrive.

Cain had had a fair amount to drink too. His cheeks were flushed. He had his head back, eyes closed, resting against the elevator wall, chest rising and falling slowly.

I was still shaken from earlier. My head was a mess.

Nobody said anything.

The elevator hummed quietly.

Then.

My shoulder dipped.

Cain's head had dropped onto my shoulder.

Declan and Vivienne stared.

My heart was loud.

The white hair brushed my cheek. From this angle I could see his thick lashes and the line of his nose, very clearly.

Declan said, "Are you alright?"

Cain lifted his head and looked at me for a second, a little unfocused.

"Sorry. Dizzy for a moment."

...

Back in my room.

I stood in front of the hallway mirror for a while.

I don't know why, but I felt something gather in my chest. A quiet kind of ache. And underneath it, a fear I couldn't name.

I had an urge to pack my bag and leave right then.

But I was a grown adult.

I couldn't leave. I had meetings with their Finance team in the morning.

At eleven, just as I'd showered and was getting ready for bed.

A knock at the door.

I hesitated, then went to open it.

Cain was standing there with his head down. He'd changed into blue pajamas. His hair was damp, falling forward, half-covering his face.

Nothing like the calm, polished Alpha from earlier in the day.

He just looked... harmless.

"Wren, I've got a bad headache. Do you know how to do pressure massage?"

He pressed two fingers to his temple as he said it, like he was genuinely struggling.

"No."

I said it straight.

"You do? Great."

He walked in past me.

"Can you help me out? I'm not sure I'll make it through the finance meeting tomorrow if this doesn't let up."

He sat down on the couch like it was his room.

I stood there staring at him.

He looked over at me.

"This isn't the right position? You want me to lie down?"

"Sitting is fine."

The words were out before I thought about them.

He looked down. The corner of his mouth moved just slightly.

"Okay."

The town was quiet that night. The world outside might as well not have existed.

Just this small room.

He sat on the couch. I sat on the coffee table.

Facing each other.

My hands on his temples, pressing in circles.

He closed his eyes.

I told myself it was just helping a colleague, and besides, he was the Alpha and the meeting tomorrow needed him functional.

I had no technique. I just went in circles, not really knowing what I was doing. But after a while I noticed the skin under my hands was getting hotter and hotter.

Wherever I touched, heat.

Like something burning underneath.

I looked at him more carefully.

His forehead, his cheeks, the tips of his ears, the part of his neck the collar didn't cover. Everything faintly red.

He let out a long breath.

"The body really doesn't lie..."

I was still thinking about that sentence when he suddenly opened his eyes.