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“I’m pretty sure you don’t have a kitchen in your quarters,” she said, yawning before she sat up and stretched on the edge of my bed. I loved watching her move. She was slight, but there was a wiry layer of muscle to her which spoke of a fighter.
Of ashifter.
“Officer digs are fancy but not that fancy. You rely on the kitchen like the rest of us.”
“True,” I said, getting out of bed as well, even though I’d have loved nothing more than to stay there to cuddle her. But there was work to finish, and I had no doubt the normal flow of things would be endlessly interrupted by Uncle Graham.
He wasn’t the worst of my relatives, but he wasn’t the best, either. He was a selfish and malicious man who seemed happiest when he was able to twist words and manipulate people in order to get his way.
I wasn’t a fan of his self-importance, or the implication of his presence.
“Do you think winning the battle drew enough attention that your family back home realized where you were?” Ayla asked casually as she stood.
Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“That’s a possibility. I know my mother was probably thrilled the moment they found out.”
“You and your mother are on...good terms?” Ayla’s tone was cautious but not guarded. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful about family when my mate was basically an orphan twice over, but like everything else in my life outside of the military, the answer was complicated.
“As good as we can be considering the situation.”
“Yet she sent your uncle, who you clearly don’t get along with.”
“My father keeps a tight leash on the queen, and I’m fairly certain Graham saw there might be a way for him to take credit for our success here. He’s a political vulture of a sort.”
I appreciated Ayla’s look of disgust. She was quite attractive to me regardless, but it was her character and moral sense which drew me to her.
“Gross.”
“Yeah, I’m not arguing with you there. His showing up is bad luck.”
At this, Ayla shot me an expectant look, her eyebrows raised in a way which somehow spelled out “I told you so.”
“Hey, not everything bad can be blamed on your curse,” I said.
“You don’t know that, and neither do I,” she said. “That hangnail you had last week? Maybe me. The kitchen putting brown mustard on your sandwich when you wanted yellow? Could be me. Walking into a room and forgetting why you were there? You guessed it! Could be me.”
I chuckled at the idea, because hell, if Ayla’s curse was benign, everything would be a whole lot simpler. I crossed over and looped my arm over her shoulders, tipping her toward me so I could kiss the top of her head. “If being with you means a lifetime of hangnails, wrong condiments, and a little forgetfulness, then sign me up.”
Perhaps I’d spoken too soon of my devotion. “In any case,” I continued awkwardly, “my family has been looking for me ever since I left, and it’s not like I’m the king of subterfuge. Honestly, they probably would’ve found me a lot sooner if Oren hadn’t been running so much interference. He understands the paperwork that comes with obscuring identities and the like far better than I do.”
Ayla’s pale brows knitted together, and I worried I’d upset her.
“He’s not going to get in trouble with your family, is he?”
Ah. She was concerned for my friend. I felt pleased that she was worried about Oren. He was my closest ally and righthand man, so it meant a lot if my mate had his safety in mind.
It… it felt like apack.
As odd as it sounded, I’d never felt much kinship with my actual blood family. It was no secret the DeLune bloodline was about as ruthless as they came. Although most commoners were too scared, and justifiably so, to voice their exact feelings about the royal bloodline and most of the court, I had no such compunctions. Nearly everyone in my family was a selfish, cold, unempathetic, and greedy blight on the planet. They were obsessed with gaining and keeping wealth and power, indifferent to who they hurt in the process.
“No, I’ll make sure of it. I doubt they’ll even think about him, to be honest, considering he’s low-born.”
“They really care about that, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah.” Thinking about my family always made my inner wolf pace about the confines of my mind. To him, the DeLunes flew in the face of our responsibilities as an alpha. We were supposed to protect. To support. To guide and lead. Packs were only as strong as their weakest members, and though the alpha was the head, they weren’t inherently more important than everyone else. After all, pack waspack, not a dictatorship. “It’s one of the many things we disagree on.”
“Is that why you left?” There it was again, the cautious way Ayla sometimes asked questions, as if she was trying not to show her interest or seem too invested. Considering how the witches treated her, I could see why she’d developed such a way of investigating things, but it made me sad.
