The Alpha I Shouldn't Want

Chapter Eight — What I Wore

° Elera's POV °

The water was still cold when Kaiden and Kieran finally climbed out, dripping and laughing about something Kaiden had said that made his brother nearly choke.

"We should head back," Kieran said, wringing water from his hair. "Father wanted us at the border meeting this afternoon."

"Already?" I floated on my back, staring up at a sky gone the color of pale honey, unwilling to leave the water yet.

"Duty calls," Kaiden said, not sounding remotely sorry about it. "You coming?"

"I think I'll stay a little longer."

Kieran studied me for a second — that particular look he gave when he was deciding whether to push. He must have decided against it, because he only nodded.

"Don't stay too long. It gets cold once the sun drops."

"I know the forest, Kieran. I grew up in it."

"I know. Just—" He hesitated, then shrugged, like he'd talked himself out of whatever he'd meant to say. "Just don't lose track of time."

They dressed quickly, called their goodbyes, and disappeared into the tree line, Kaiden's laughter trailing behind them long after I could no longer see either of them. And then it was just me, and the stream, and the particular hush that settled over the clearing once the two loudest people I knew had gone quiet.

I sank back into the water and let myself drift.

I told myself I wasn't thinking about him.

I was lying, obviously. I'd been lying to myself about that for longer than I wanted to admit. But the water was cold and clear and endlessly patient, and it didn't call me out the way Kieran's eyes did, the way Kaiden's blunt questions did, the way the whole estate seemed to be quietly cataloguing every strange thing that had happened since I came home.

*Some distances are necessary.*

I turned the words over again, the way I'd turned them over every night since he'd said them. I still didn't understand what they meant. I understood even less why they'd settled somewhere so deep in my chest that I couldn't shake them loose no matter how far I swam or how long I stared at the sky.

The sun crossed the clearing slowly. I watched the light change — gold to amber to something dimmer, something that meant evening was coming whether I acknowledged it or not.

I should have gotten out an hour ago.

I didn't.

°°°

The guard found me just as the first stars started to bleed through the darkening sky.

"Lady Elara."

I startled, treading water, and turned to find him standing at the edge of the clearing — Marcus, I recognized after a second, the pack's Gamma, broad-shouldered and steady, someone Valerian trusted enough to send after wayward pack members who'd lost track of time in the woods.

"Marcus. Sorry — I didn't realize how late it had gotten."

"The Alpha requests you back at the house." He kept his eyes politely fixed somewhere over my shoulder, the way well-trained guards did when addressing a half-submerged woman. "He asked me to find you when you didn't return with his sons."

Something in my stomach tightened. Not fear exactly. Something closer to the anticipation of a conversation I wasn't ready to have.

"Tell him I'm on my way."

"Of course." He inclined his head and retreated back through the trees, giving me privacy to climb out.

I waded to the bank, water sluicing off me, and reached for my clothes where I'd left them folded on a flat rock — shirt, pants, the light jacket I'd worn out that morning. I pulled the shirt on quickly, the fabric clinging to damp skin, and reached for my pants.

They were soaked through. I'd left them too close to the water's edge, and the evening dew combined with splashing must have drenched them thoroughly while I wasn't paying attention. Cold, heavy, useless.

I sighed and weighed my options. Walk back to the estate in wet pants that would chafe and cling the entire three miles, or —

The shirt fell to mid-thigh. Long enough. Decent enough, technically, even if it wasn't ideal. It wasn't as though I hadn't run through this forest in less before, as a child, racing the twins without a second thought about propriety.

I balled up the wet pants, tucked them under my arm, and started the walk home.

°°°

By the time the estate's stone walls came into view, full dark had settled over the forest, and I was cold enough that I'd half-forgotten to be self-conscious about what I was — or wasn't — wearing.

That lasted exactly until I walked through the front doors and found Valerian standing in the entrance hall.

Waiting.

He must have heard me coming. Or smelled me, more likely — wet hair, stream water, the whole forest still clinging to my skin. He turned as I entered, and whatever he'd been about to say died somewhere in his throat.

His eyes moved over me. Just once. Quick, almost involuntary.

Then his expression shut down entirely, jaw tightening into something hard and unreadable.

"Where are your pants."

Not a greeting. Not *are you all right*, not *you're freezing*, nothing I might have expected from the man who used to notice when I skipped meals.

"They got wet. I didn't want to walk three miles in soaked fabric."

"So you walked three miles like *that* instead."

"Like what, Valerian?"

"Half-dressed. Through open forest. At night."

Heat crept up my neck that had nothing to do with the cold. "I'm wearing a shirt."

#VOTE