"Can we go sowhere more open?" Seraphine asked, glancing around the room like the walls were already closing in on her.
Voren shook his head. "What you want to know is not sothing I can say just anywhere." He turned and started moving down the hall. "My room is bigger. We can talk there."
He was already at the door before she had a real chance to weigh it, pushing it open and stepping aside without making a production of it. She walked in ahead of him and stopped just inside the doorway.
The room was not what she’d pictured.
Yes, the bed was massive, the kind that took up an entire wall and still had room to breathe on both sides. But it wasn’t the bed that caught her attention.
On one side of the room sat two large couches angled toward each other with a low coffee table between them. On the other side, two wide sofas faced a matching table, the kind of setup that felt more like a living room than a bedroom.
The whole space had a heaviness to it that wasn’t oppressive, more like it had been lived in, thought in, paced around in at two in the morning.
She hadn’t expected it to feel this comfortable.
"If you’d rather not be in here," Voren said from behind her, "there’s the study. But that room is too stiff for this kind of conversation." He moved past her toward the couches. "The garden works for easy things. Not for this."
Seraphine crossed the room and settled into one of the couches, sinking into it more than she planned to. Voren poured her a glass of water from the small table nearby, then lowered himself onto the sa couch, not close, a few careful inches between them, like he’d asured the distance in his head before sitting.
She wrapped both hands around the glass.
"First," she said, "I want to know about Jasmine."
Voren didn’t flinch, didn’t stall. He’d made a promise and he kept it, his voice coming out even and unhurried.
"Jasmine saved my mother’s life." He rested his forearms on his knees, eyes forward. "My mother was on her way back to the pack when a rogue attacked her on the road. Jasmine was out there alone, born a lone wolf, no pack to return to. She stepped in and even as she was overpowered by the rogues, it gave my mother the needed ti to get help from our warriors."
He exhaled through his nose. "My mother took that seriously. Felt like she owed Jasmine sothing she could never fully pay back. So she brought her in and decided the most natural way to settle the debt was to have marry her."
Seraphine’s fingers tightened slightly around the glass. "So, you’re married." The words tasted bitter in her mouth but Voren scoffed.
"No." His voice was flat and certain. "Everyone around would know if I were. I don’t hide things like that. That’s not who I am."
Seraphine didn’t fully agree with that, but she kept it behind her teeth for now and let him continue.
"Jasmine is a calm person. Reasonable. She was honest with from the beginning, told she had feelings for ." He paused, just long enough to make sure the next part landed clearly.
"I was honest right back. Told her I didn’t feel that way and I never would. That I wouldn’t marry her." He leaned back against the couch cushion. "She took it better than most people would have. And sowhere along the way she got attached to Marigold. That was about three years ago."
Seraphine turned that over slowly. "You’ve lived with her for three years and felt nothing?"
"I didn’t live with her, but even if I did, I still know that nothing would change." He looked at her then, direct, and unbothered by the assumption.
"She stayed mostly with my parents. That’s where she spent the majority of her ti. Marigold’s nanny resigned when her daughter had an accident. She had to go take care of her and wasn’t sure when she’d return and that’s when things changed."
"Marigold needed soone consistent and Jasmine stepped into that without being asked." He paused. "Before all of that, I was in California most of the ti. Whenever my parents ca to the city, they stayed with in Carli. During the last Sovereign club eting, Marigold was having an episode so I couldn’t leave her. That’s why I moved the whole thing from here to the Bohemian groove."
Voren’s eyes stayed on hers, steady. "Honestly? The reason I moved back here permanently had nothing to do with any of that."
Seraphine went very still. "Then what was the reason?"
"You."
The word landed in the room with no drama behind it. He said it the sa way he said everything, like it was simply true and he saw no reason to dress it up or soften it.
Seraphine stared at him.
"We’ll get to that part," Voren said, reading her face. "But right now, I need you to understand sothing about Jasmine first. I treat her as Marigold’s nanny. I pay her well for it and I’m straight with her about what that ans."
He held her gaze. "But if for any reason you’re uncomfortable with her being here, or if sothing about her doesn’t sit right with you, I can let her go. That’s not a difficult decision for ."
Seraphine shook her head slowly, sothing snagging in her chest. "Wait." She looked at him carefully. "Why would my opinion have anything to do with who you keep in your life?"
Sothing moved across Voren’s face at that. Not quite pain, but close to it. The corner of his mouth pulled into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, the kind that had sothing tired underneath it.
"I think," he said quietly, "we should move on to Marigold’s mother."
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and held it out to her.
Seraphine took it without thinking. It was locked. She looked down at the screen and then back up at him, a question in her eyes.
"You know the code," he said simply. Then he stood up, moving toward the door with that sa unhurried ease. "I’ll go check on Marigold and get us sothing to eat."
And then he was gone, the door pulling softly shut behind him.
Seraphine sat alone in the quiet of his room, the phone face-up in her hands. Her heart had started doing sothing loud and unsteady against her ribs. She looked at the locked screen for a long mont, her thumb hovering over it.
She didn’t know the code, but her thumb moved, and the numbers fell into place one by one, and the screen unlocked. Strange how Voren’s passcode was the sa as hers.
The wallpaper loaded before she could continue pondering about the reason, and the color drained from her face so fast the room went slightly sideways.
User Comments
0 comments from readers