Chapter 6

His gaze met mine without warning.

I started to pull back.

But he bent forward and pressed his face into my knees.

The white hair fanned against my skin. The back of his neck was burning red below it. White and red, side by side.

I didn't dare move.

He stayed like that for a long moment. Then his voice came up, muffled.

"I kept telling myself not to rush. I said it ten thousand times. But tonight, watching you sitting there, I couldn't hold it anymore..."

He lifted his head and looked at me.

His eyes had gone red. Full of something sad and desperate and something else that stuck.

In that moment.

The Cain from today and the Cain from five years ago.

They overlapped completely.

I stood up fast and stepped back.

I looked at him and kept my voice steady.

"I don't get involved in workplace arrangements like that."

He blinked. "What?"

"Alpha. You've had a lot to drink. I don't know what you're talking about. But if this is about that kind of thing, I'll have to resign."

I said it slowly. But clearly.

He sat there, watching me.

I held my hands tight and looked back at him.

After a long moment he looked down, stood up, and said quietly, "Sorry. I really was drunk. I feel better now. I won't keep you up."

I didn't change my expression. I nodded.

As he passed me and walked out, he turned his head slightly.

Very quietly, he added:

"Good night. Big sis."

I caught a cold when we got back. I stayed home for two days. By the time I returned to the Pack office, I had completely reset back to Finance Director Wren.

I'd stopped trying to figure out whether he'd recognized me.

As long as I didn't confirm it, it wasn't confirmed.

In meetings with Cain I kept my face straight, like nothing had happened. No telling whether it showed.

Who says getting older is a bad thing.

It gives even someone with as spineless an inner life as mine the ability to look steady when it counts.

Cain didn't do or say anything more. He never brought up that night again.

Like he'd truly blacked out and it had all been drunken noise.

That actually made things easier for me. It saved me from having to perform in a one-person drama with no audience.

Five years had passed.

We'd both learned how to handle things like adults.

We'd both changed.

What I didn't expect was Declan.

He changed.

He stopped walking in and out with Vivienne. He started following expense policy without complaint. At one meeting he actually said, "The Finance Division is the Pack's first line of defense" — which left half the room speechless.

Every time I glanced at him, he looked away.

When Vivienne came close to talk to him, he'd shift slightly, putting space between them.

She stood there staring, not sure what to do with herself.

After that meeting.

I was the last one out of the conference room.

Declan appeared and blocked my path.

He looked at me. He rubbed his face hard with one hand, like he was trying to clear his head. When he spoke, his voice was low.

"Wren, things between us have gotten too strange. We obviously both still have feelings, but every day we're like two people in a bad drama, always fighting, never letting the other one win. I keep having these moments of confusion — why is Vivienne the one always around me when she's nothing to me..."

"I've been thinking for a while now. We both know the Bond being severed was just pride and stubbornness in the moment. This past year we've both learned from it. I know you still care. Otherwise why would you still be here? I finally figured it out. I'm the one who has to say it first. Bonds aren't easy. Feelings aren't easy. But we're both still free. There's room to fix this—"

"Declan."

I interrupted him. My voice was calm.

"I asked for the Bond to be severed. It wasn't impulsive. It had nothing to do with fighting with you or trying to make a point. I don't even think there's any reason I should leave a decent job over you. Don't say things like this to me again. It makes you look ridiculous, and—" I looked past him. "—the person behind you too."

I looked over his shoulder.

He turned slowly.

Vivienne was at the corner, eyes red, face humiliated. She'd heard everything.

I gave them both a brief look.

Then I turned and walked away.

Cain was away from the office for several days.

His assistant said he'd gone out of the territory. She didn't know the details. The approval workflows were all online, so Pack business kept running without him.

One afternoon.

The three women in Finance huddled together, talking quietly.

Someone asked Elara why he'd left.

"He went to see his aunt. In the Northern Packs. He'll be back in about two weeks."

"Why didn't you go with him?"

Elara smiled, sweet and careful. "He said he had something important to discuss. He said he should go alone."

The other two dropped their voices and went breathless.

"An important personal matter? Oh no — is the Alpha finally going to break through with you two?"

Elara waved them off with a look of gentle reproach. "Stop making things up. We're siblings."

"Adopted siblings with no blood connection and no shared registration. There's no issue there." Someone analyzed it seriously. "That's why he has to go get permission from an elder first. He's protecting you."

Their voices got smaller, with occasional excited little sounds mixed in.

I stared at the spreadsheet on my screen.

A quiet, dry amusement settled over me.

Good thing I'd kept my head.

Cain, seeing the real me — the boring, cautious, rigid Wren — why would he still want that?