SHERRY
The song stretched longer than I expected.
Adrian kept the same measured distance he had started with, one hand light at my waist, the other holding mine without pressure. Around us the floor filled and emptied in slow turns. Camilla’s voice drifted from the edge of the room, bright and strategic. Viktor stood near the elders. Jax remained where he had been, a fixed point against the far wall. Eric had not moved far from the champagne table.
Adrian looked at me the way someone looks at a map they have studied in private and are now checking against the real terrain.
“You used to stand in corners,” he said.
It was not a question.
“I preferred them.”
“I know.” He turned us once, clean and unhurried. “The girl who kept a book in front of her face so the pack would forget she was
