Page 238 of Sorrow & Strangers

“It is odd for him to suddenly insist on this, so I wonder what prompted it,” he says, standing over me.

“He thinks Mira blew him off.” I shrug. “I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.”

He sits next to me, and I’m comforted as the mattress dips beneath his weight. “Did Mira help keep him stable?”

I shrug, “I thought so. But then she just kind of disappeared. She’s completely ghosted him,” I say with a shrug.

He pauses for a long moment. “They were very attached at All Souls.”

I nod. “I know. It doesn’t add up.”

He slides his hand into mine and squeezes, drawing my attention to him. “Would you like me to find her?”

“You would do that?” It had never occurred to me to ask him to find her, but a male with such power who single-handedly created the Nexus mainframe would have no issue doing it.

“If you ask me to, there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, little fae.” He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses the knuckles.

“Thank you.”

The stranger nods. “Talk to him about it. Rafe has spent his life believing demons are enemies he was created to fight.” He brushes his thumb over my knuckles. “He may not be a monster to you, but that may not be his truth.”

“You speak from experience?” I ask, wishing I could truly see his eyes.

“Yes,” he says, his lips twitching.

“You’re not a monster.”

“You are very much in the minority in that opinion.”

“Does that matter to you?” Does he care what others think of him? How he is perceived? “How everyone else sees you.”

“No,” he says, and there is only truth there. “But it matters to me how you see me,” he adds.

“It matters to me how you see me too,” I concede.

Chapter Ninety-Seven

Summer

When I arrive at the canteen at lunchtime, I’m surprised to see Max sitting at our usual table talking to Leo. I grab my lunch and then join them.

“Hey,” Max says, glancing at me as I take the seat next to him.

“Hey. You have lunch with us now?”

“That good with you?”

I nod. “I just assumed that if you left your natural habitat, you’d break out in hives or something.”

Max rolls his eyes. “I’m also trying to convince Leo to deal with his shifter itch,” Max says, looking at Leo again.

The shifter itch happens before shifters shift for the first time, and the symptoms increase in severity until the first shift happens. There have been thousands of cases where shifters have been driven mad by it. There are ways to manage the itch, and one of them is working out.

“I’m fine,” Leo grumbles into his pasta.

“I’ve been trying too,” I say. Every time I see Leo, I can see the lion prowling beneath the surface of his skin, desperate to be freed. “Max is the best in the biz, Leo. You can trust him.”

“Listen, I’m not shifting. So there is no need for any of this.”