Page 175 of Beasts of Mine

“The sleeping room.” Tavian answered as he jerked his chin toward the hallway.

“No.” I told Tavian, nodding toward the nearby cabinet instead. His eyebrows rose as he tightened his arms around the blankets.

“She likes blankets.” Tavian argued, looking genuinely confused about why that wasn't enough reason to carry them directly to the bed.

“She does.” I agreed with Tavian as I rested one hand against the worktable. “Put them where she can find them. She decides which ones go in the nest.”

Tavian's gaze moved toward the sleeping-room hallway, and the argument disappeared almost immediately as he understood what I meant.

“Right.” Tavian said quietly before carrying the blankets toward the cabinet without another complaint. Malek cleared one drawer near the worktable and left it empty while I moved the spare radio charger to a more accessible shelf. Tavian returned from the cabinet and helped with the remaining work without trying to fill the open spaces himself.

By late afternoon, the living area barely looked different, which was exactly what I wanted. The table sat somewhere drier, another sealed box waited beneath it, part of one shelf and a drawer were empty, and extra blankets rested inside a cabinet where Evie could reach them if she wanted them. There was simply more room than there had been that morning without anything looking as though we'd already decided how she should use it.

Tavian came back through the courtyard a little later with one hand suspiciously closed near his hip, and the attempt to look casual only made it more obvious that he'd found something.

“No.” I told Tavian immediately, narrowing my eyes at the fist he was trying and failing to make look innocent.

“You don't even know what I have.” Tavian protested, stopping several feet away as outrage appeared across his face.

“It is something you found outside and decided Evie needs.” I answered Tavian, folding my arms while I waited for him to prove me right. His hand opened to reveal a smooth dark stone resting in his palm. Malek made a quiet sound somewhere behind me, and Tavian immediately turned toward him.

“Don't.” Tavian warned Malek, narrowing his eyes before looking back at me. “It's a nice stone.”

“I didn't say it wasn't.” I told Tavian, glancing from the stone toward the empty shelf near the worktable when his attention followed mine.

“I could leave it there.” Tavian suggested, taking one step toward the shelf while turning the stone between his fingers.

“No.” I answered Tavian, stopping him before he reached it. His brows pulled together as he looked from me to the bare wood.

“The shelf can stay empty.” I explained as I nodded toward the unused space. Tavian studied it for several seconds before understanding changed his expression.

“So she can put something there.” Tavian said as he looked back toward me, the argumentative edge leaving his voice.

“If she wants to.” I confirmed for Tavian.

“I'll give it to her myself.” Tavian decided as he closed his hand around the stone and slipped it carefully into his pocket.

“That was always going to make you happier.” Malek observed from behind us, amusement faintly warming his normally controlled voice.

“Yes.” Tavian answered Malek without embarrassment, patting the pocket once to make sure the stone remained there. “I like when she keeps things.”

We knew that about him already. Tavian had been bringing Evie gifts before she even knew he had hands, but watching him tuck this one away instead of deciding where it belonged for her showed me he'd understood what I'd been trying to say.

I looked around the room once more. Nothing had been labeled for Evie or arranged as though she'd already agreed to live here. We'd simply stopped using a few spaces ourselves and left them open. For most of my life, bringing someone into a pack would have meant showing them how we already lived—the territory, the customs, and the rules that kept the sanctuary protected. Evie came with an entire life none of us understood yet, and if she kept coming back, we would have to learn parts of hers too.

For now, she had only promised to return, so we left her somewhere to put something when she did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EVIE

The photograph looked fine until I zoomed in, and then every bit of satisfaction I'd felt taking it disappeared. I leaned closer to the laptop and dragged two fingers over the trackpad, enlarging the image until the green kingfisher's head filled most of the screen. The feathers along its crown were sharp enough to count individually, the branch beneath its feet was painfully crisp, and the leaves behind it showed every tiny vein washed in the last gold light filtering through the canopy. Its eye, however, was soft—not dramatically enough that someone scrolling past the photograph on a phone would notice, but enough that I noticed. The focus had landed just behind its face, and once I saw it, there was no convincing myself otherwise.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I muttered at the screen, sinking back in the station chair before leaning forward again with one elbow braced beside the laptop, as if another angle might somehow make the focus shift where it belonged.

It didn't, and the next frame wasn't any better. The bird was sharper, but it had turned just enough that a leaf cut across the lower half of its beak. The photograph after that had nearly perfect composition and enough motion blur through the head to make it useless at full size, while two frames later the branch, leaves, and water were beautifully sharp and the actual bird looked like an afterthought. By the time I reached the end of the sequence, I had my forehead propped in one hand while I glared at the thumbnails along the bottom of the screen.

“What did the bird do to you?” Mara asked from the other side of the room, amusement threading through her voice as she looked up from the field notes spread across her desk, a pen still caught loosely between her fingers.