She moved through the viewing enclosures like she'd walked those corridors a hundred times before. I noticed it immediately—the way her body adjusted to the space without conscious thought, the way she anticipated turns and transitions before they appeared. And the way she kept touching the walls, pressing her palms against stone with an expression that looked almost pained.
Like she was remembering something.
Damiros noticed too. I caught him watching her with that calculating attention he reserves for strategic variables, his sharp gaze tracking her responses with professional detachment that felt anything but detached. When I confronted him about it during a private moment between viewings, he deflected with his usual precision.
"She's adapting well to the environment," he'd said, his tone carrying no inflection at all. "For a human with minimal experience."
"That's not what you were cataloging."
"Then perhaps you should ask yourself why her adaptation concerns you so much." His ember-green eyes had locked ontomine with unsettling directness. "Professional interest in staff performance, brother? Or something else?"
I'd walked away rather than answer. Because I don'thavean answer. Just this growing certainty that something is wrong—or right, or both simultaneously—and I can't identify which.
My hands clench at my sides as I round another corner of the perimeter path. The estate grounds are quiet at this hour, most attendees retired to their accommodations now that the beasts have settled for the night. Only a skeleton staff remains on rotation, monitoring containment systems and managing basic security protocols.
I should go back to my quarters. Get what sleep I can before tomorrow's final negotiations. But the thought of lying in that bed and inevitably dreaming ofher—of Lenna in contexts that feel like memory but can't possibly be—makes my jaw tighten with frustrated tension.
The dreams have been increasing in frequency. Intensifying in detail. Last night I dreamed of her in my private study at the estate, reading something by lamplight while I worked at my desk. The domesticity of it should have felt foreign, wrong. Instead it felt so natural that waking up alone had been physically disorienting.
Two nights before that, I dreamed of teaching her binding techniques in one of the stable's training areas. Her hands had moved through the motions with confident familiarity, and when she'd looked up at me with that small smile—the one she never shows me in waking life—I'd felt something crack open in my chest.
None of it makes sense. Dreams are dreams, not predictive visions or recovered memories. They're just my subconscious processing stress and proximity and whatever complicated attraction has been building despite my best efforts to suppress it.
But they don'tfeellike dreams. They feel like something else entirely.
I'm so caught up in my own spiraling thoughts that I don't register the approaching figure until I'm nearly on top of them.
"Watch where you're?—"
The sharp reprimand dies in my throat as moonlight catches brown hair and warm eyes that widen with surprise.
Lenna.
She steps back quickly, her hand coming up in an instinctive defensive gesture before she recognizes me. Then something shifts in her expression—wariness replacing alarm, though neither looks particularly comfortable.
"Sorry," she says, her voice carrying that same careful neutrality she uses when we're in the stables. Like she's constantly calculating the safest response. "I didn't realize anyone else would be out here."
I force my shoulders to relax, trying to moderate the irritation still simmering beneath my surface. It's not her fault I'm agitated. Not directly, anyway. "What are you doing away from the accommodations? It's past curfew for auxiliary staff."
Her jaw tightens slightly. "I was checking on Khorvas. Making sure the transport stress hasn't triggered any residual agitation."
Of course she was. Because despite everything—despite the confusion and impossible familiarity and dreams that won't let me rest—she's still more concerned about the beasts than her own rest. Still prioritizing their comfort over basic self-preservation.
It makes my chest do that complicated thing again. Warmth mixed with frustration mixed with something I refuse to name.
"Khorvas is fine," I say, more gruffly than intended. "The containment monitors would have alerted staff if there were any behavioral concerns."
"I know." She doesn't back down, doesn't apologize for exceeding her assigned duties. Just meets my gaze with that quiet stubbornness I've come to expect from her. "I wanted to check anyway."
The silence stretches between us, heavy with all the things neither of us is saying. I should dismiss her. Send her back to her quarters and continue my solitary attempt to walk off this restlessness. It would be the professional thing to do. The safe thing.
Instead, I hear myself ask, "Would you like to join me?"
Her eyes widen slightly, genuine surprise breaking through her careful composure. "Join you?"
"Walking. To clear my head." The words feel foreign even as I speak them, like I'm operating on instinct rather than conscious decision. "Unless you'd prefer to return to your quarters."
I expect her to refuse. To make some polite excuse and extract herself from this increasingly strange situation. It would be the smart choice—maintaining appropriate boundaries, avoiding whatever this tension is that keeps building between us.
