The confession tasted bitter on his tongue.
“At first it only happened when she was afraid,” he admitted, quieter now.“Then when she was angry.But now.”
He stopped.
Lucian waited him out, gaze still on the valley, giving him the dignity of not watching him while he bled.
A short, humorless laugh escaped Gerick, more breath than sound.“Now I can tell when something between them changes, even if I don't know exactly what.”
The silence beside him sharpened.
Lucian did not ask who.He did not need to.
Gerick closed his eyes briefly, letting the cold air wash over his face.“And the worst part is, I don’t think she realizes it’s happening.”Or maybe that was just hope dressed as observation.“She’s fighting something,” he added, opening his eyes to a view he still wasn’t seeing.“Whatever is happening in there, she’s fighting it.”
“Shade.”
It was not a question.
Gerick nodded once, a single tight motion, and the name settled between them like something poisonous seeping into stone.The breeze picked up again, curling mist across the terrace in pale strands that wrapped around their boots before drifting onward past the railing.
Lucian scrubbed a hand slowly across his beard.“You think this is because of whatever existed between them before?”
“No,” Gerick said quietly.“I think the Nushtonia is forcing truths to the surface.Things they buried.Things they never resolved.”
Even saying it twisted something sharp in his chest, deep and vicious, the kind of wound a male only noticed when he stopped moving long enough to feel it.
Before Lucian could answer, footsteps approached from behind them, accompanied by the faint scent of something herbal and vaguely unsettling drifting ahead of the woman carrying it.
“Ah,” Perizada drawled, her voice cutting across the terrace with the dry ease of someone who had spent centuries refusing to be subtle.“Nothing says emotional devastation like two males brooding under moonlight while pretending they’re discussing battle strategy.”
Gerick closed his eyes briefly.Of course, she would walk in right now.
Peri stopped on his other side, a steaming mug cradled in one hand, the smell rising from it vaguely herbal and deeply suspicious.Her silver-white hair shifted in the mountain breeze as she glanced between the two males.
Then her expression changed.
The humor drained from it.
“Oh,” she murmured, and the word came out gentler than he had expected from her.“This is worse than I thought.”
Behind her, Lilly emerged from the cavern entrance carved into the mountainside, boots whispering against the stone as she crossed the terrace.The warlock queen wore dark, fitted clothing that moved easily with her, and her yellow eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight as magic hummed quietly beneath her skin.She carried another mug, though unlike Peri's, the steam rising from hers curled upward in glittering ribbons of actual magic that unraveled into the cold air like tiny ghosts.
Lucian eyed it suspiciously without lifting his arms from the rail.“What’s in that?”
“Depends,” Lilly replied easily, stopping on Lucian’s far side so the four of them formed a loose line along the railing, the valley spread out before them and the watching mountain at their backs.“Are you trying to sleep, heal emotional trauma, or hallucinate pleasantly?”
The wolf blinked.“That answer somehow makes me trust you less.”
She grinned, the cheeky one Gerick had come to know well.“Good.”
Lilly lifted the mug for a slow sip, her eyes on Gerick over the rim, and when she lowered it the teasing had drained out of her expression entirely.
“Well, hell,” she said.“You look terrible.”
“Thank you, Warlock Queen,” Gerick said dryly.
“You’re welcome, General.”
