Posey
Roman’s departure wasn’t the least bit shocking. He hovered in the doorframe of my bedroom in the glare of morning light, posturing, refusing to make eye contact as he rattled off what was happening and his expectations of me in the meantime.
“It’ll be better for you to stay here. It’ll give you a chance to actually put forth an effort in your upcoming entrance exam, and I will finalize the details of your move to Moonrise while at home. You won’t have to worry about Mom and Dad’s feelings on the matter. You’ll be alone here. You’ll have all the time you need to prepare for this. To succeed.” His voice was monotone but firm–a silent warning, and honestly, a confirmation that he gets it now. Why I’m doing this. Why I have to go. Even if his reasons for being okay with it are entirely selfish and only about him and his precious future.
He said nothing about Aris and left after saying, “I’ll pick you up in ten days, give or take.”
The first thing I did was check my calendar, counting the days until the next full moon, breathing a sigh of relief that I’ll be home by then, and cracked open the textbooks I’ve already studied cover to cover.
I didn’t see Aris for an entire day after that. A storm swept through the Gem Lake districts, swamping the lakes and channels in so much rain Miles, Tate, and Roman couldn’t catch the ferry until close to midnight. No one bothered me. No one lingered in the kitchen while I cooked a meal for everyone, which went cold because everyone was on edge.
The next day, when the clouds cleared, I woke with a pounding headache that tapered off by midmorning, just as I was easing into my sandals to go to the farmer’s market, which has become a ritual during my time here. When I returned to the manor, Aris was standing in the driveway talking to an older man who couldn’t be anyone other than the Alpha of Ruby. The way he slightly cowered in Aris’s utterly casual, non-offensive presence haunted my brain for the rest of the day. It was a quiet, somewhat lonely, and honestly, perfect day. Just the way I like it.
Aris is an Alpha even without the title. Some people are just born to be one, whether by birth or force. One day soon, I suspect, Aris will inherit all of this. Gem Lake. The various towns of Veiled Valley. The capital city high in the mountains. He doesn’t realize the effect he already has on those around him, even the hardened Alphas that will one day live under his rule and command.
The headache returns with a vengeance when night falls, followed by full body chills that wake me in the middle of the night–sweaty and aching. I’ve felt like this before. My irregular cycles are likely because of my inability to shift into a wolf, and these afflictions normally come when I’m nearing the end of the moon cycle. However, they were never this intense before.
I wake up the morning of the second day after the guys left all alone in the house, drenched in sweat, but feeling well–well enough to spend the morning in the sun at the edge of the dock studying. Aris doesn’t say a word to me. He’s busy, it seems, or avoiding me, which would make two of us.
I suppose, in another life, before I kissed the lifelong friend of my older brother, being left to my own devices with Aris would have been nothing to fuss over. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. I would have, probably, seen Roman’s insistence on leaving me behind to be babysat by Eastonia’s most prolific fuckboy as nothing more than a grave annoyance. I would have stayed in my bedroom the entire time, studying, ignoring Aris’s many attempts to rile me in whatever way he could because that’s who Aris is and what he always does.
But now, the house feels shockingly open. For me.
It’s hard to explain, but I feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Anyone else would have made a real list of things they wanted to do, like Willow advised. I would have taken it seriously, spent the next few weeks of freedom checking things off. The food I wanted to try. The people I wanted to meet. The places I wanted to go.
But I’m… boring, to put it simply. I long for the solitude and quiet I’ve now been awarded. My list would have been short–after those damning kisses…
Or it would have been completely sexual in nature.
I shake those thoughts from my mind and go back inside, leaving the dock behind.
The next day, I brace my hands on the smooth quartz countertop in my ensuite bathroom, staring at my undone reflection in the mirror, and those thoughts come back. It’s early morning, three days after Roman left. The sun hasn’t risen and won’t for another hour or two, but I’m awake and shaken to my bones like I’ve been through a blender, and I look like it.
Strands of sweat-damp hair stick to my reddened cheeks. My glossy, fevered eyes stare back, my pupils wider than I’ve ever seen them. I have an overwhelming desire to peel my skin from my body and split my ribcage apart to scoop out whatever’s stuck there, hurting me. A virus. A parasite. I don’t know, but last night, I woke up repeatedly in a kind of pain I’ve never experienced, and the only thing that helped the fever that followed was repeatedly dunking myself in a cold bath.
The old T-shirt I wore to bed sticks to my skin. The syrupy feel of it as I peel it off makes me shiver with disgust. I’m still trembling with remnants of the fever as I shower, scrubbing sweat from my hair, letting the cool water ease the blush threatening to stain my cheeks for the rest of the day. My breasts ache. My stomach feels raw and knotted. I thought these cramps must be my moon cycle coming early, but I’m not due for another two weeks, just before the next full moon. I think. I’ve never been totally sure when it’ll come.
I change into another T-shirt, leaving my hair wet enough to cool the back of my neck while I rip the sweat-soaked sheets from my bed. I sweated through to the mattress.
Aris doesn’t wake up for another four hours. When he finds me, I’m dozing on the couch in the little library on the first floor, sprawled out without a care in the world with every single window open to a cool morning breeze. Of course, he would choose this morning to finally talk to me.
“Um… what’s up?” he asks, scratching his head. He rounds the couch to look down at where I’ve withered away. “I’ve been looking for you for like an hour. I figured you went into town, but your sandals are still on the back porch.” He scans my body from head to toe, moving slowly up my bare legs before he meets my gaze again with a deep furrow of his brow. “Are you okay?”
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“Yeah, looks like it.” He eases onto the coffee table, using it as a chair even though it creaks under his weight.
He smells… amazing. Like magnolia blossoms and salt. Like the forest after a drenching kind of rain, when everything is alive and fresh. Perspiration glimmers on his shoulders, just visible in the cut-off T-shirt that shows off most of his muscles. I want to rub my face against his shirt. The fabric looks so worn and soft and I…
“I think I might be coming down with something,” I admit, meeting his gaze, and he’s utterly confused. Just like me.
“Doubtful. Shifters don’t get sick–oh.” He grits his teeth and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Right. You can’t shift. Well, what can I do? Medicine? Soup? What do people need when they’re sick?”
“I think I’m going to just sleep it off. It’s just stress, I’m sure.”
“Sure.” He doesn’t sound certain. He eyes me with a deep sense of suspicion before rising and extending his hand. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
The second we step foot in my room, however, I realize with a crushing sense of embarrassment that my bed is stripped to the mattress, and the evidence of my tossing and turning is… everywhere.
Aris rolls his tongue across the inside of his cheek, looking around at the scattered pillows and books and then down at me. He wordlessly tilts his head to the hallway, and I follow, expecting him to take me to one of the many guest rooms, but he opens his bedroom door.
I haven’t been in here yet during my two-week stay. It’s dark, a shaded part of the house, and the air is cool and crisp and smells like him. I shiver unintentionally and shake my head. “There’re rooms downstairs.”
“I have someone coming to clean the house and strip the bedrooms today. I’d rather you not sleep in a bed previously occupied by Tate or Miles and whomever they brought home for their regular evening entertainment.” He sucks his teeth, arching a brow. “So, get in bed. Get better because we have plans tonight.”
He begins to walk away. “What plans?”
“We’re going to a concert on the mainland. I have tickets. Unless you’re on your deathbed, you’re coming. It’ll be good for both of us to get out of the house.”
He looks over his shoulder at me, one hand gripping the doorknob.
“I don’t like this,” he says with effort, and shuts the door behind him when he leaves.
***
Gentle waves lap the dock. I wait for Aris to help me onto his sailboat. The sun set hours ago, and all across the water, boats bob, their lights casting streaks against a backdrop of the darkest black. The moon is at its weakest now, reflecting the sun’s light. Aris reaches for me, clutches my fingers, and helps me step onto the deck. He’s wearing jeans and a flannel–totally casual.
I tug my cardigan tighter over my waist. A soft breeze sweeps over the deck, ruffling my sundress, making my skin prickle with a chill. I slept most of the day in Aris’s bed, waking in a nest of his blankets, pillows, and shockingly, two of his shirts with no idea how they got there, but my embarrassment is enough to choke me silent.
In his defense, he hasn’t said a word about it and stayed away from me like he knew I needed the space.
Now, however, sitting on the deck of his sailboat as he slowly maneuvers out of the shallows and into the deeper, choppier section of the lake, he asks, “Feeling better yet?”
“Just a headache.” The pounding in my temples eased the second he touched my hand to help me into the boat, but I don’t say it.
“And the fever?”
“Gone.” It’s the truth. I fold my arms around my knees. The sails catch the wind and send us barreling across the deep. He says nothing, his eyes on the distant shoreline, the mainland, where the river leading back to the capital of Veiled Valley feeds into Gem Lake.
He seems on edge, though. I can see it painting his muscles in shadow, the tension clear in every rippling cord as he steers the boat into a spot at a sprawling fresh-water port. This section of the lake is the most populated, the busiest, with several Alphas claiming territory. I would have liked to avoid it during my time here, but Aris didn’t really give me a chance to argue.
We pull into a slip, and he ties us up. “Stay close,” he says under his breath, the words fanning against my temple. He helps me off the boat and into a crowd. Music thrums in every direction, melding with my uneven heartbeat. His scent is lost in the mix, and my head begins to hurt again, just a little pinprick behind my eyes, until he intertwines his fingers with mine and tugs me toward a building nestled against the shore with a huge, crowded deck overlooking the glimmering lake.
“I've never been to a concert before,” I tell him.
“I know,” he breathes, tugging me alone. “Just something to check off your list.”