"Damon," she said, and her voice was soft, rougher than usual, and the way she said his na sent sothing electric up his spine that he was absolutely not acknowledging.
"Go to sleep," he said, and was proud of how normal his voice sounded.
"I’m trying."
"Try harder."
"That’s very helpful, thank you."
He almost smiled. She almost smiled back. The mont stretched between them, warm and specific and weighted with everything they were both very carefully not doing.
"I know," she said quietly. "I know we can’t. I’m not....I’m not trying to....."
"I know you’re not," he said. "Your body doesn’t care about intentions."
"No," she agreed. "It really doesn’t."
She looked at him with those amber eyes, clearer now than they’d been an hour ago, and he saw in them the sa thing he was feeling....the particular frustration of wanting sothing and being sensible about it and deeply resenting being sensible about it.
"Tell sothing," she said. "Distract ."
"From?"
"Everything."
Damon considered. Then, because the humor was easier than the alternative.....always had been, probably always would be.....he said, "Did I ever tell you about the ti Damian accidentally joined a cult?"
Eve blinked. "He what...."
"It was the nineties. He thought it was an investnt seminar." Damon settled back against the footboard, watching her relax increntally as the story pulled her attention away from her own body. "He lasted three days before he started correcting their accounting practices and they asked him to leave."
Eve’s mouth curved....carefully, because her lip was still healing. "That is the most Damian thing I’ve ever heard."
"Right? He ca ho furious. Not about the cult. About the sloppy financial managent."
She laughed....quiet, a little breathless, but real. Through the bond Damon felt the hunger recede by a fraction, replaced by warmth that was softer, easier. Less desperate.
Okay, he thought. This I can do. I can do this.
He kept talking. Ridiculous stories, embarrassing pack history, things that made her eyes light up and her breathing slow toward sothing closer to rest. He talked until her eyes grew heavy, until the flush on her cheeks softened, until she finally, finally drifted into sleep with one hand loose on the pillow and her face as unguarded as he’d ever seen it.
He watched her sleep.
Still not breathing quite right. Still feeling the echo of yesterday in his chest like a bruise that wouldn’t fade.
But she was here. She was breathing. She was healing.
He could be sensible about the rest.
Three days, he told himself.
Across the bed, he t Damian’s eyes. His brother looked like he’d been having a very similar internal argunt with himself and had arrived at roughly the sa exhausted conclusion.
Silas, from his position beside Eve, simply looked at both of them and said nothing, which ant he had also been suffering in dignified silence and was not going to dignify the suffering by discussing it.
Three days.
They were absolutely going to survive three days.
Probably.
****
Eve’s POV — Day Two. Afternoon.
The knock on the bedroom door ca while Eve was winning an argunt with Silas about whether sitting up counted as rest.
"It does if I’m sitting," Eve was saying. "Sitting is not strenuous...."
"The definition of rest does not include...."
"I’m not even using any power...."
The knock was quiet but precise. The kind of knock that had opinions. Damian opened the door to find Marcus on the other side, and the expression on the older wolf’s face made Damian step into the hallway imdiately and pull the door most of the way closed behind him.
Eve heard the murmur of their voices....not the words, but the register. Low. Urgent. The specific frequency of information that people didn’t want to deliver.
Through the bond, she felt Damian’s reaction....a cold spike of sothing that resolved into controlled alertness before she could identify it fully.
He ca back into the room two minutes later, his expression arranged into its most neutral configuration. Which ant he was feeling sothing he didn’t want Eve to see.
"What?" Eve said.
"There’s a visitor." He paused. "For Raphael."
Silas looked up sharply. "Who?"
Damian’s pause was almost imperceptible. "Lady Seraphine."
The na dropped into the room like a stone into still water.
Eve pushed herself upright....ignored Silas’s instinctive protest....her mind moving fast. "Seraphine ca here? Personally? She was just at the trial...."
"She left after the trial. She’s co back." Damian t her eyes steadily. "She asked specifically for Raphael. Has been closeted with him in the study for the past twenty minutes. Marcus thought we should know."
"Is she...." Eve started.
"She didn’t ask for you," Damian said. "Didn’t ask about you. Whatever she ca for, it’s not about your recovery."
That should have been reassuring. It wasn’t. A five-hundred-year-old faction leader didn’t make personal house calls to deliver good news. They sent interdiaries for good news. They ca themselves for the kind of information that required a face.....for the kind of intelligence that couldn’t be trusted to a ssenger.
"Malachai," Damon said quietly, from his corner of the room.
No one argued with him.
They found out three hours later.
Not from Raphael....he ca to Eve’s room after Seraphine had gone, and the expression on his face when he walked through the door was the most carefully controlled she’d ever seen him. Tight around the eyes. Sothing working beneath the surface that he was keeping very deliberately contained.
He looked at the brothers first....a look that communicated things Eve wasn’t quite fast enough to catch....and then at Eve, and his face did sothing complicated.
"I need to speak with your mates," he said. "Privately."
Eve opened her mouth.
"It concerns your safety," Raphael said, and his voice had a gentleness in it that was sohow worse than urgency would have been. "And I need to speak with them first. Damian will tell you. I give you my word."
She looked at him for a long mont. Took in the controlled expression, the careful posture, the way his hands were too still at his sides. Raphael, who was always fluid, always composed in a way that read as effortless....was holding himself together through deliberate effort.
Whatever Seraphine had told him.....it had shaken him.
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