“More effi—” She turned on him with the full weight of a woman whose food preferences had been insulted. “Tacos are perfect food. Portable. Customizable. No chopstick learning curve. Sushi is a commitment. Tacos are a lifestyle.”
Kael raised both hands. “I’m having whatever she’s having.”
Zeir looked at Lumi. She looked back. Arms crossed. Chin up. Daring him to argue with a woman who approached lunch decisions with the intensity of a military strategist.
He sighed. “Tacos.”
“Victory.” She spun toward the counter. The crowd surged and someone—a tourist with an overstuffed backpack—knocked into her shoulder and sent her stumbling sideways.
His hand shot out before thought.
Fingers closing around her elbow. Steadying. Pulling her closer. The movement was instinct—pure, ungovernable, the wolf reacting faster than his conscious mind could override. She was against his chest before either of them registered the physics of it. The height difference stark—the top of her head at his collarbone, her face tilted up, her body pressed against his from hip to shoulder.
Her pulse kicked against the pad of his finger where it pressed the inside of her elbow. Her scent flooded him. This close, the rest of the market disappeared. The noise flattened to a hum. His entire attention narrowed to a single point, the chaos around them reduced to irrelevance.
“Thanks.” Her voice was steady. Her heartbeat wasn’t.
He released her. His fingers dragged—slow, reluctant, tracing the inside of her elbow before his hand dropped. Not accidental. Not businesslike.
“Watch your step.” Low. Rough. A man using two words because all the others were a terrible idea.
Kael, three feet away, was studying the taco menu with the focused intensity of a man pretending very hard not to have witnessed anything.
They ateat a high table near the windows. Kael and Lumi debated marketing strategy between bites—she was sharp, decisive, and had opinions about audience reach that made Kael take notes on his phone. Zeir ate his tacos and tracked the conversation with half his attention.
The other half tracked her.
The way she talked with her hands—gesturing with a tortilla chip, punctuating arguments with it, using it as a pointer when she disagreed with Kael. The way she laughed—sudden, full, a sound that cut through the market noise and hit him somewhere behind his ribs. The paint smudge on her thumb she hadn’t noticed.
She mentioned her father.
The shift was immediate—subtle enough that Kael might have missed it, but Zeir’s wolf caught the change in her scent before her voice altered. The bright edge dimmed. A cooler note underneath, careful and guarded.
“My dad was a banker before he went into philanthropy.” She set the chip down. “Good at it, too. But it wasn’t—” She paused. Chose her words. “It wasn’t the thing he was built for. Harlanunderstood that gap. The distance between what you’re good at and what you need. He used it.”
“Used it how?” Kael’s voice was gentle. The charm stripped away, the real person underneath—perceptive, careful.
“He mentored me. Three years. I thought he was teaching me craft. He was studying my process. Learning how I built characters.” Her expression hardened. “When we parted ways, elements of Sable started showing up in his work. Nothing he couldn’t deny. Nothing I could prove. But I knew.”
She picked the chip back up. Bit into it. The casual gesture was deflection—filling the silence with action so nobody would notice the wound she’d exposed.
Zeir didn’t speak. Every instinct he possessed strained against his composure—the drive to stand between this woman and every person who’d ever taken advantage of her trust.
“Anyway.” She dusted salt off her fingers. “That’s why Keanu reviews every clause. And why I don’t hand over unpublished work without protections in place.” A glance at Zeir. Direct. Testing. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Good. Because I like working with you and I’d hate for honesty to ruin it.”
“Honesty is the only thing that makes it work.”
The words landed between them. Loaded in a way he hadn’t meant. Her eyes held his across the table and the market noise roared around them, and Kael picked up his phone and became deeply interested in it.
Back at the studio,afternoon light poured through the south windows. The momentum from the morning returning—panels spread across the work surface, reference materials stacked, the quiet hum of focused collaboration.
A young woman met them at the elevator—barely twenty, dark hair, the alert posture of someone new to a security rotation. Kael introduced her briefly: Sera, one of the pack’s junior members, just assigned to building rounds. She gave Lumi a small nod—not unfriendly, assessing—and continued down the corridor.
Kevin from the art department appeared in the doorway. Tall. Hawaiian shirt, golden retriever photos pinned to his lanyard. Harmless. He crossed to Lumi’s station with a layout printout and leaned in to point at a panel, his hand landing casually on her shoulder.
