She gave him the mont. This was another thing about Elena—, he gave him things without requiring explanations for why he needed them. Space when he needed space. Presence when he needed presence. This particular mont, standing in her small apartnt with his hand around her wrist, just... breathing.
"I’m alright," she said after the mont had passed. "I promise. I’m right here."
"I know," he said. "I know you are."
He released her hand.
She went to pack.
She packed efficiently, her bag was full within fifteen minutes, organized in a way that suggested she’d been half-prepared to leave quickly regardless of today’s specific circumstances.
She ca back into the living room with the bag over her shoulder and stopped when she found him standing at the window, looking out at the street below.
"Hey," Elena said.
He turned.
She was watching him with that look, the one that ant she was reading sothing in his face he hadn’t intended to show.
"You’re doing the other thing now," she said.
"What other thing?"
"The one where sothing’s eating you alive and you’re being very composed about it." She set her bag down and crossed to him. "Talk to ."
"We should get back to the estate...."
"We will. Talk to first."
He looked at her.
"I should’ve warded this building," he said.
"You didn’t know...."
"I knew the threat was bound to co sooner or later. I’ve known for months that Eve’s claim was escalating, that Malachai would move eventually, that the people closest to her would beco leverage points." He held her gaze, making himself say it cleanly rather than dancing around the edges. "I knew all of that, and I didn’t ward your building. I didn’t make sure you had proper protection."
"Raphael..."
"When the arrangents were made," he said, "at the estate, when the alphas organized feeding provisions and there were volunteers..." He watched her face. "You weren’t among them. You’d made no indication of willingness. There were others....willing, available, entirely appropriate choices."
"I rember," Elena said quietly.
"I requested you specifically," he said. "You know that."
"I know."
"What you don’t know, what I’ve never told you....is why." He held her gaze.
"I’d been in that estate for less than three hours. I’d t perhaps forty people.
And from across a room full of strangers, I noticed you. Not because of how you looked or what you said. Because of how you were." He paused. "You were calm. Genuinely calm, and quiet in a way that wasn’t absence." He paused again. "I’ve existed for two hundred years in Courts and politics and the constant noise of powerful people performing their power at each other. I’d forgotten that quiet was possible." He looked at her steadily. "I requested you because sothing in my nature recognized sothing in yours before my conscious mind had even ford a complete thought about it. And I’ve been trying, with varying degrees of success, not to make that your problem ever since."
The apartnt was very quiet.
Elena looked at him for a long mont. Then she stepped forward, closed the remaining distance between them, and put her arms around him.
He put his arms around her.
And held on.
The relief of it was different from the relief of seeing her safe in the doorway.
He didn’t let go for a long ti.
She didn’t ask him to.
"You should’ve just told ," Elena said eventually, her voice slightly muffled against his chest. "About the wards. About what to watch for. I would’ve listened."
"I know," he said.
"I’m not... I’m not fragile, Raphael. You can give real information."
"I know that too."
"And the other thing." She pulled back enough to look up at him, not stepping away, just creating enough distance to see his face. "What you just told . About why you chose . I’m glad you told . I’ve been wondering since the beginning what made you ask for specifically. I thought about it a lot."
"And what conclusions did you reach?" he asked.
The corner of her mouth moved. "I thought maybe you’d sensed sothing about my nature that was particularly compatible with your feeding requirents."
"That was part of it," he said honestly.
"And the rest?"
"The rest," he said, "is everything I just told you."
She looked at him for another mont. Then she said, "I chose you back, you know. When you requested ... I could’ve said no. I wasn’t a volunteer. No one would’ve required it of ." A pause. "I said yes because I wanted to."
Raphael looked at her.
"We should talk more about this," he said. "Later. When Eve’s recovered and the imdiate threat is managed and there’s ti to..."
"Yes," Elena said simply. "We should."
She stepped back, picked up her bag, and looked at him.
"Ready," she said.
He took the bag from her shoulder without asking.
They left the apartnt together.
He opened the car door for her.
She got in and imdiately reached over to reorganize his bag, which she’d apparently relocated to the backseat at so point, into a more sensible position.
He got in. Started the engine.
Then his phone rang.
Damian.
He answered it.
"Raphael." Damian’s voice ca through the speaker, tight and controlled. "Are you on your way back?"
"Twenty minutes," Raphael said. "What’s happened?"
A pause. Short and weighted.
"Maya," Damian said. "She was with Eve. In the bedroom. They were talking, and then..." Another pause. "She went to get water. The kitchen’s forty feet from Eve’s room. She said she’d be right back."
Raphael’s hand tightened on the wheel.
"Damian."
"She hasn’t co back," Damian said. "That was eleven minutes ago. We’ve checked the kitchen, the hallways, her room. The secondary exit on the west corridor." His voice dropped to sothing very quiet and very controlled. "Raphael. She’s not in the building."
Beside him, Elena had gone completely still.
"We’re coming," Raphael said.
He stepped on the accelerator and drove faster toward the estate.
***
Maya had been gone for nineteen minutes when Raphael’s car ca through the estate gates.
Nineteen minutes. Maya had walked forty feet to get water and had been gone for nineteen minutes, and the estate, the warded, protected, supposedly impenetrable estate had simply let it happen.
Eve was sitting on the bedroom floor.
She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d moved from the bed to the floor. Sowhere between minute seven and minute twelve, probably. It didn’t matter.
The pack was searching. Every available person, every corner of the estate and the grounds beyond it. Marcus had taken the exterior. Catherine had locked down the interior. Security footage was being reviewed in real ti.
Forty feet. A corridor Eve had walked a thousand tis.
Nineteen minutes.
She went to get water, Eve kept thinking. She was coming right back.
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