Chapter 8 - Too Close
1197 Words
Elara crossed toward the bed first, needing something to do besides stand there thinking while the weight of the night pressed heavier around her.
Behind her, Thorne moved through the suite, setting the whiskey beside the stack of reports covering the table before dragging a chair back into place. Paper shifted softly beneath his hand while rain continued tapping against the tall windows overlooking the lower grounds of Draegon.
Neither of them spoke.
The silence felt different now. Earlier, it had carried the edge of confrontation, both of them pushing against a situation neither wanted. Now the quiet felt heavier in a different way, shaped by exhaustion, awareness, and the uncomfortable reality that this arrangement wasn’t temporary anymore.
Elara grabbed one pillow, then another, placing them carefully through the middle of the mattress until a clear divide stretched across the bed.
A line.
Simple enough to understand.
She adjusted the second pillow slightly before climbing beneath the blanket without looking toward him.
The room stayed quiet long enough for her to feel his stare before she finally glanced up.
Thorne stood near the table with one hand braced against the edge, looking directly at the barrier running through the bed.
“You actually built a wall.”
She settled against the pillow.
“You say that like you expected better.”
“I expected you to get stubborn about the couch.”
“That would imply I planned on sleeping there.”
Something close to annoyance crossed his face before he walked toward the opposite side of the bed.
The mattress dipped slightly under his weight when he sat down.
Elara hated how quickly she noticed it.
The awareness came immediately, instinctive and impossible to separate from the bond pulling quietly beneath her skin. Even with the pillows dividing the bed, his presence still filled the space around her too easily.
His gaze flicked once toward the barrier again.
“You know that isn’t solving anything.”
“It’s helping me.”
“That’s debatable.”
Rain moved steadily against the windows while distant voices carried faintly from the lower grounds below. Wolves crossed through the territory in shifting patterns beneath the lights surrounding the main structure, their movements blending with the sounds of late patrol rotations and conversations drifting through the wet night air.
Draegon stayed active even this late.
The territory breathed around them constantly, alive in a way Elara still hadn’t adjusted to.
Thorne reached toward the lamp beside the bed before pausing.
“You need it on?”
Elara glanced toward him.
“That sounded far too domestic for my comfort.”
His expression flattened immediately.
“Do you answer every question like that?”
“Only the uncomfortable ones.”
The honesty slipped out before she could stop it.
For a second, he just looked at her before switching the lamp off.
Darkness covered the suite aside from the faint glow outside the windows. Shadows stretched across the ceiling while rainwater slid slowly down the glass, catching pieces of light from the lower grounds below.
Elara shifted beneath the blanket, staring upward while the room adjusted around them.
The sound of fabric moving.
The occasional shift of the mattress.
His breathing somewhere beyond the pillows.
Every small thing felt amplified now that the suite had gone quiet.
Sleep refused to come.
Every time she started drifting, tomorrow pushed back in.
The training grounds.
The wolves watching her.
The expectation tied to a title she had never earned.
Her stomach tightened again at the thought of walking into Draegon in the morning while every pair of eyes measured her against years of hatred, grief, and loyalty she had no place inside.
Beside her, Thorne shifted slightly.
“You keep moving.”
“So do you.”
“That’s because your pillow fortress is taking up half the bed.”
Despite herself, Elara almost smiled.
“You’ll survive.”
“That’s the hope.”
A faint smirk threatened to pull at her mouth before she forced it away.
Silence drifted back between them while rain continued tapping softly against the glass.
After a while, Elara rolled slightly onto her side, watching water trail down the windows while distant movement carried through the territory below.
“You really think any of this is going to work?” she asked quietly.
“What part?”
“The council forcing peace between packs that spent years tearing each other apart.”
Thorne stayed quiet long enough that she thought he might ignore her completely.
“The council got tired of burying people.”
His voice stayed flat, stripped clean of emotion.
Elara looked back toward the ceiling.
“My pack buried people too.”
“I know.”
No sympathy touched the answer.
Only acknowledgment.
The response should have irritated her more than it did.
Instead, something about the blunt honesty made it easier to breathe around him. Thorne never pretended things were better than they were. He never softened reality to make it easier to carry.
Outside, wolves moved across the lower grounds while voices echoed briefly through the rain before fading again into the dark.
“Elara.”
“Hm?”
“Kaia’s showing you the territory tomorrow. The rest is your problem.”
Her fingers tightened slightly around the blanket.
“And if your wolves already decided they hate me?”
“Then you deal with it.”
Blunt.
Expected.
Oddly easier to handle than empty reassurance.
Silence returned once more while exhaustion slowly dragged at the edges of her thoughts.
Beside her, the mattress shifted faintly before going still again.
“You’re still staring at the pillows, aren’t you?” she murmured.
“In my defense, I’ve never seen anyone turn bedding into a territorial dispute before.”
A quiet laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
The sound faded quickly, though some of the strain left the room afterward.
Thorne turned onto his side a moment later, facing away from the center of the bed.
“Elara.”
“What now?”
“If one of those pillows ends up on my side while I’m sleeping, I’m throwing it across the room.”
“There’s the territorial Alpha.”
“And there’s the sarcastic Luna.”
The title hung briefly between them before both let the conversation fall away again.
Time blurred after that.
The rain never stopped.
Neither did the distant movement outside.
Elara listened to wolves crossing the lower grounds, doors opening and closing somewhere deeper in the territory, voices carrying through the wet night air before disappearing again.
Beside her, Thorne stayed mostly still, though every now and then she felt the mattress shift faintly beneath his weight.
The awareness never fully disappeared.
That frustrated her more than anything else.
Even exhausted, even irritated, even separated by a ridiculous line of pillows, she still knew exactly where he was.
Eventually, her eyes drifted shut again.
This time exhaustion pulled harder than the thoughts circling through her head.
By the time sleep finally started dragging her under, one thing had become painfully obvious.
Sharing space with Thorne was going to wear her down in ways she hadn’t prepared for.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD