Dax's POV
I tell myself, walking away from the strategy table that evening, that what I'm feeling is caution. Reasonable, practical caution about a meeting arranged with a man whose pack has already tried, twice, to buy Sera back like property, whose Beta has a hired killer somewhere in our territory's shadow.
It isn't only that, and by the time I find Sera alone in the kitchen later that night, I've stopped pretending to myself that it is.
"I need to say something," I tell her, "and I'd rather say it plainly than let it sit under everything else I've been saying instead."
She sets down the cup she's been drying, giving me her full attention. "Say it, then."
"I'm not afraid of Caelum hurting you," I say. "Not physically. I don't think he's capable of that, whatever else he's been capa
