You do not.”
Saul hugs me, wishes me good luck, and disappears from Koen’s sight at record speed. Then it’s just us. Across the sky, a bird of prey calls in a loud, descending pitch.
“I should have,” Koen mutters. In the sunlight, his eyes look darker than usual.
“What?”
“Chained you to my fucking radiator. I still could. I will.”
I laugh. “No, you won’t. But I’ll be all right. They don’t know I can shift again. If things get dangerous, I can always run.”
He clenches his teeth. “If anything happens to you, I’m going to- “
“Kill me, yes. I know the drill by now.” I would love to hug him, but Anneke is right behind me, and she’s part of the Assembly. I don’t want to make things harder for him. “I think it’s gonna work, Koen. We’ll get rid of this threat, and we’ll . . . move on.” I smile. More or less. “Consider it my parting gift to the Northwest.”
“You already gave the Northwest enough.”
I swallow thickly. “I like to think that I simply didn’t take away one of its most attractive features.” It’s not funny. Neither of us is laughing. The pangs in my chest feel more like stab wounds.
“Sure.” He exhales. “I have to go, Serena. Before I chain you somewhere for real.”
I nod, willing away the full, prickling feeling at the back of my throat. Watch Koen spin around and put some distance between us.
But he stops.
Takes a deep, shoulder-heaving breath.
Turns again and marches back to me, taking my face in his palms and pressing our lips together.
It’s a simple, bruising, marking kiss. My fingers grip his wrists, and he smells like we never left his cabin. We’re still in our nest, measuring each other’s breathing. Marveling at how quickly we fall into rhythm.
“Whatever you need, you have to come to me. It’s a fucking order.” His voice is strained. “I don’t care where you are. I don’t care what it is. I want you to promise me that for anything you- “
“I promise, Koen.”
He nods. Fills his lungs with air. Shakes his head. “Fucking nuisance,” he mutters, and then he’s walking, driving away.
Amanda and I enter Anneke’s car.
MY GRANDFATHER’S HOUSE HAS BEEN EMPTY FOR NEARLY FIVE DECADES. The outside, however, looks surprisingly intact, and no one seems to have initiated a stone-throwing contest toward the living room windows.
“Could I claim this property?” I ask, standing on the balcony. “Does it belong to me?”
“Technically, everything on pack territory belongs to the pack itself,” Anneke’s assistant tells me, a little pedantic.
We should introduce her to Jorma, Amanda whispered to me earlier, after she offered us a croissant and pronounced it like we were fine dining in Toulouse.
“Is anyone taking care of this place?”
“Yes. People will stay here occasionally, mostly when they are between residences. They would be welcome to move in, but . . .”
“They know it’s the house where Constantine’s father was born and don’t want to commit?”
She nods.
“Fair enough. There’s probably lots of black mold in those walls.” It would certainly explain the family history.
“It’s also very close to the border,” she points out. “Over there, that line of trees? That’s Human territory. Very well patrolled, and we haven’t had issues in a long time. But . . .”
“Interesting.” I pretend to be learning something new. “Thank you for showing me.”
“No problem. I have to say, I was surprised when Anneke said you’d want to visit your grandfather’s home, but . . . I guess it makes sense.”
I smile. Ten minutes later, I lie in the grass with Amanda, staring up at the cloudy sky. My fingers play with my mother’s necklace.
Put it on, Saul suggested before I left.
It’ll make the lie that you’re all about reconnecting with your ancestors even more believable.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Amanda says, but my mind is on something else.
Someone else.
“Did I ruin it for him?”
She glances at me. “What? Who?”
“Did I irreparably undermine Koen’s authority?” When I publicly stood up to him, his seconds’ faces covered the not-small gamut from shocked to scandalized.
Amanda laughs. “Oh my God, no. Believe me, we’re all very clear on our respective roles in Koen’s life. No one would dream to assume that because you get away with bitching at the Alpha, so would they.”
“I don’t want to make things complicated for him, now that I’m leaving.”
She is silent for a long beat. When I turn to face her, I find her staring. “Thank you, Serena,” she tells me. Serious, and uncharacteristically heartfelt.
“For what?”
“For not taking him from us.”
“Oh.” I rub a hand down my jeans. “How do you know that he . . . ?”
“I didn’t. Or maybe I did, but not because he told me. I knew from the start that it would come to this. From the moment he returned from the Southwest and told me that he’d found you.” She chuckles, shaking her head. “He was so mad, Serena, for actually liking you so much. And I took Saul aside and said, this is how we lose Koen. He doesn’t know it yet. And if I told him, he’d ask me to fuck off and call me a . . . a prickhound, or something. But I knew it.” Her expression sobers. “I would have forgiven him if he’d left the Northwest. But I don’t think he’d have forgiven himself. So thank you.”
That’s when her phone rings, as planned, and Amanda walks inside the house to take the call, leaving me alone.
As planned.
THIS TIME AROUND THERE ARE NO DRUGS INVOLVED, AND WHEN I find myself bound and gagged in front of Irene, I’m feeling grateful.
Honestly? I set the bar too low. I need to start asking more of my abductors.
And then there is a hideout about eight miles from there, Nele told me yesterday, pointing at a map.
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