SERAPHINA’S POV
The sa dark car was waiting in the parking lot where it had dropped off earlier, idling beneath the streetlight.
I assud my Nightfang driver had returned, efficient and unobtrusive enough that I could slide into the backseat and spend the drive ho sorting through the heavy conversation I’d just had.
I reached for the handle of the back door.
Then the interior light flicked on.
Kieran looked back at from the driver’s seat, baseball cap pulled low, sunglasses perched on his nose.
I froze, my hand still hovering over the door.
“Kieran?”
He lifted one hand from the wheel in a half-wave. “Hi.”
I stared at him. “You’re not my driver.”
“No,” he agreed, having the grace to look sheepish. “I’m not.”
“What are you doing?” I asked, even as I pulled open the passenger door and slid in.
“Picking you up,” he said casually.
I crossed my arms and turned to him. “Really? Because to , it looks like stalking.”
“I was going to watch from afar,” he said quickly. “Just...make sure you got out okay.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And the disguise?”
He reached up and adjusted the brim of his cap, sheepishly. “You didn’t want people to know we’re together.”
Together.
The word made sothing flip wildly in my stomach, warmth flushing my cheeks as my lips twitched despite my best efforts.
He must have mistaken my silence for anger, because his shoulders slumped and he sighed, worry flickering across his face as he leaned back against the seat.
“I’m sorry. This is all new to , and I’m not at all sure how to maneuver it, but I missed you, and I wanted to see you, and I didn’t think of anything else outside of that. I guess I...lost my head.”
I don’t know what disard more, the rambling or the admission.
The cap and sunglasses couldn’t hide the tension in his shoulders and the faint edge of innate Alpha possessiveness he hadn’t yet learned how to temper.
He reached for my hand without looking, and his fingers brushed mine—hesitant for half a second, as if checking whether this was still allowed—before lacing our hands together.
I didn’t pull away.
I had to stab my teeth into my lower lip to suppress the wide smile that threatened to spread. “That’s...cute.”
Kieran’s eyes widened as he looked at , aghast. “You did not just call cute.”
I tilted my head. “I just caught you stalking and spying on . You’ll be whatever I call you.”
He huffed, muttering sothing under his breath that sounded like ‘Alpha’s aren’t cute,’ then reached out and flicked the interior light off.
I turned to put my seatbelt on and released my bottom lip, letting the smile unfurl along with the fluttering in my belly.
The engine purred to life a second later, and the car eased out of the parking lot, the glow of the OTS compound slipping away behind us.
Through it all, our hands never unwound.
For a few monts, the only sound was the hum of the road beneath the tires.
Then Kieran said, too casually, “So...I see Lucian’s back.”
It wasn’t an accusation. Just a statent. But I felt the weight of it all the sa.
“Yes,” I replied, “he is.”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened ever so slightly. “You two seed awfully close.”
I couldn’t help the snort that fell out of . “On the contrary, I think tonight is the furthest apart we’ve ever been.”
“Really.”
It was so adorable, the way he was trying so hard to keep his voice neutral. But I didn’t ntion it; he was still reeling from ‘cute.’
I turned toward the window, watching the lights blur past. “He’s been gone for a while. It was kind of weird seeing him tonight.”
“But you were glad to?”
I t Kieran’s gaze briefly, then shook my head. “I thought I’d feel many things when I saw him again: angry, happy, accusatory...whatever. But mainly, I just felt concerned.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “He looked exhausted. Worn down in a way that didn’t sit right with .”
Kieran exhaled slowly through his nose. “Did you bring up...recent developnts?”
I shook my head. “I wanted to ask about what Ethan said he saw, but I couldn’t bring myself to. And since the air on that isn’t clear, I didn’t tell him about the Shift or being a silver wolf. Alina masked her presence from him, too.”
Try as he might, Kieran couldn’t hide the sigh of relief that slipped out of him.
He asked again, “Why?”
I shrugged. “Because sothing about him felt...off.”
“Off...how?”
“His psychic imprint has always been benign,” I said. “Hard to read, but generally harmless. But tonight, there was an...impurity. Sothing unfamiliar threaded through him that I’d never sensed around him.”
Kieran’s grip on my hand tightened.
“I couldn’t see it clearly,” I admitted. “I doubt I’ll be able to see things like that without fully anchoring myself. I asked him outright if he was in any trouble, and he straight-up lied to my face.”
“Oh,” Kieran said. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s whatever.”
I stared out the window as the city thinned, streetlights fading into darker stretches of road.
It wasn’t whatever. It was deeply unsettling.
Lucian had always been an enigma, but now it was like thick dark clouds surrounded him, and I could barely see the man behind them.
Wherever he’d disappeared to, whatever he’d been doing had...changed him. In a way that made my skin itch and stomach churn.
Just because I didn’t want to be with him romantically didn’t an I didn’t care about him.
Whatever he was going through seed to be eating at him, and as soone who had countlessly received his help, it was only natural that I wanted to return the favor however I could.
“You did the right thing, not telling him everything,” Kieran said. “Lucian Reed is very good at hiding. Ethan and I already assigned people to look deeper into his movents.”
That surprised . “You have?”
Kieran nodded. “Whatever is going on with him might be none of our business, but on the off chance that it even remotely affects you, we’ll be on top of it. Once we have sothing solid, you can decide how to approach him. Or whether you even should.”
I nodded, though the unease didn’t fully leave. “Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.”
“Are you still...friends?” Kieran asked.
“Yes,” I said, turning to face him. He glanced away from the road long enough to see the sincerity in my eyes. “Just that.”
The smug satisfaction that flickered across his face was imdiate and impossible to miss. “Good.”
I shot him a look. “Don’t get comfortable.”
“I’m never comfortable when another Alpha is involved,” he replied dryly. “Especially one who looks at you like that.”
I tilted my head. “Like how?”
He shook his head. “Don’t make relive it, or I’ll turn this car around for the sole purpose of pulling Lucian Reed’s eyes out of his head.”
Nothing about that sentence was funny. Yet, a small giggle fell out of .
I turned back out the window, and that was when I fully realized that we’d completely driven out of the city. The car was on a darkened, narrow road, climbing steadily upward.
“Kieran?” I turned back to him with furrowed brows. “Where are we going?”
He squeezed my hand. “I was saving it for a more opportune ti, but I don’t want you thinking about another man all night, so I have to distract you.”
I shot him a look. “That’s incredibly manipulative.”
“And hopefully effective,” he countered.
The road wound upward, trees closing in around us until the only lights we had were the low of the moon and the car headlights.
When the car finally ca to a stop, we were perched at the edge of a quiet clearing.
A cabin stood nestled among the pines, warm light spilling from its windows.
My breath caught despite myself. “What opportune ti was this for?”
“Our first date,” he admitted. “But I’m flexible.”
I blinked. “So this...”
He raised our intertwined hands and pressed my knuckles to his lips. “Sera,” he murmured against my skin, sending shivers up and down my arm, “will you go on an impromptu date with ?”
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