Claimed Twice

Chapter seven

Flowers I Did Not Ask For

The flowers filled almost my entire desk. White ones, the kind that do not smell too strong, the kind that would not make my head hurt. He remembered that too. He remembered I get headaches from strong smells.

Priya walked by, saw the flowers, and stopped dead in her tracks.

"Okay, that's a lot of guilt in one bouquet," she said.

There was a small card tucked into the flowers.

These won't fix anything. I know that. I just wanted you to have something soft today. — A.

I did not know what to do with that. Part of me wanted to throw the whole thing in the trash. Part of me, a part I did not like very much, felt something warm in my chest that I had not felt in five years.

I put the flowers in the break room instead. I told myself it was because they would not fit at my desk. That was not the real reason.

At two o'clock, my boss called me into her office. Alpha Alexander was already there, sitting at the small round table, wearing a gray suit and looking like he had not slept much either.

"The Kade pack is sending someone to check our research today," my boss said. "Alpha Alexander needs your data on the halfling blood samples by end of day. I need you two to work together in the lab."

I looked at Alexander. He looked at me. Neither of us said anything about the flowers, or the note, or the five years between us.

"Fine," I said. "Let's work."

We walked to the lab in silence. The elevator ride felt like it lasted a hundred years. When the doors finally opened, he spoke first.

"Nora, can I ask you something?"

"You can ask," I said. "I might not answer."

"Does it still hurt? What I did?"

I stopped walking. I turned to look at him, right in the eyes, for the first time since the ballroom.

"Every single day," I said. "My body has never fully healed since that night. The doctors don't even know why. But I think I know why. I think some part of me broke that night, and it never got fixed."

His face went pale, paler than I had ever seen it.

"What do you mean, broke?" he asked, his voice shaking.

Before I could answer, an alarm started blaring through the lab, red lights flashin

g along the ceiling.