His mate wore a mask

CHAPTER5

Remy

What Breakfast Costs

The dining room has nine people in it and I count them automatically, the way you count exits in a burning room.

Alpha Derrick at the head of the table. Marla Cole to his right, silk blouse, professional warmth. Sasha to Marla's right, wearing a white dress that probably cost more than my mother's monthly allowance, her hair down, her posture performing effortless perfection. My father, Beta Harlan, beside Derrick .... straight-backed, efficient, already cutting his food before others have unfolded their napkins.

Three guests in the remaining seats.

One is older .... an advisor, by the look of him, grey at the temples, a folder open beside his plate. One is Kade Mercer, who I recognize from the briefing photos my father sometimes leaves on his desk and that I am not supposed to read, but do. Easy posture, quick eyes, the kind of face that forgets nothing.

And the third.

I see him before I mean to.

He is already looking at the door.

Storm-grey eyes. Square jaw. Dark hair, shorter than it seemed last night in the amber light of Silver Veil. He is wearing a grey shirt the color of his eyes and he is sitting with the stillness I recognized last night .... not comfortable stillness, not bored stillness. The kind that belongs to a predator who has committed to waiting.

He is looking at the door.

He is looking at me.

I have exactly a second to decide.

I decide to be Remy Dusk.

I walk into the dining room with Dreston 's economics outline in one hand .... plausible reason for presence .... and I aim directly for Dreston 's chair without looking at the front row of last night again, which is what my brain keeps calling it despite the fact that we are in a dining room with morning light and polished silverware and this is not that.

"The outline," I say, setting the folder beside Dreston 's plate.

He glances at it. Then at me. Then at the table of guests, doing the social calculation I am not supposed to know he does.

"You can sit," he says. Low, half-dismissive, the tone he uses when he wants me accessible. "We'll review after breakfast."

This is not an invitation. It is a leash adjustment.

I pull out the chair at the far end of the table .... the service end, the end that says I am staff, which I am, which is fine, which is exactly where I want to be .... and I sit.

Derrick Cole glances at me and then away, which is the full extent of his acknowledgment of my existence and has been for fifteen years. Marla smiles vaguely. Sasha does not look at me at all, which is its own kind of statement.

My father does not look at me either.

This is our choreography. We have performed it so many times it runs without rehearsal.

I pick up a piece of toast.

"Remy," Alpha Derrick says, and I look up before I mean to, "my son tells me your academics are exceptional."

The table's attention shifts. This is normal .... Alpha Derrick introduces me this way occasionally, as proof of the quality of his pack's young people, the way someone might display a well-maintained piece of equipment.

"I work hard," I say.

"Modest." Derrick smiles. He is a handsome man in the way that position makes men handsome .... the confidence is so thoroughly worn-in it reads as a physical trait. "Prince Zane, this is Remy Dusk, Beta Harlan's son. Top marks in every subject, I'm told. Headed to the university next term."

I look at the middle of the table.

I do not look at Prince Zane.

"Remy," says Prince Zane.

I have to look at him now.

His voice is the same. Unhurried. Exact. The voice from the corridor this morning, from outside the closet door, and before that from across a stage with the music still playing.

I meet his eyes.

Nothing moves in his face. But his eyes do something I cannot name .... a settling, like a lens reaching focus .... and his nostrils make the smallest possible movement.

My hand tightens on my toast.

I took my pill at five-thirty this morning. It should be at full strength. It should be making me into nobody, chemically speaking. A blank.

But his eyes.

"Good morning," I say. The voice I use for this .... Remy's voice, a half-register lower than my natural voice, worn smooth with years of practice. "Welcome to Silverpeak."

A pause.

"Thank you," he says. Then "What are you studying? At university."

This is a normal question. It is a completely normal question and there is no reason for my pulse to be doing what it is doing.

"Pre-law," I say. "With a focus on pack governance policy."

Something crosses his face..

"I hope so."

Sasha cuts in. "Remy is basically Dreston 's shadow." She says it brightly, the performance of a fond acquaintance. "Always around, always helpful. We'd be lost without him, honestly." Her eyes find mine for exactly half a second .... a needle, quick and precise .... and then slide away.

Sit down, her eyes say. Stay put. You are background.

I eat my toast.

Under the table, I press my palm flat against my thigh.

Zane Ashford has gone back to his plate. Conversation resumes around the table .... Derrick asking about the Lycan Court's position on the northern border, Kade answering smoothly, my father offering pack logistics data in his clipped efficient way.

Normal breakfast. Normal morning. I am nobody.

Except.

Once. Just once, in the middle of Kade describing the Court's current alliance priorities.

He looks at me again.

Not the polite glance of someone tracking conversation. Not the assessing look of a prince evaluating a pack member. Something else .... the same look from the stage, the same look from the corridor .... and it lasts only a second but it is the most complete second of being seen I have experienced in nineteen years and I cannot survive it at a breakfast table.

I stand up. Smooth, purposeful, no urgency. "I'll let you discuss pack business," I say, addressing the center of the table, not him specifically. "Dreston , I'll be in the library if you need anything on the outline."

I walk out of the dining room.

Normal pace. Normal posture. Remy Dusk going about his morning.

I get to the hallway.

I press my back against the wall.

My wolf is making the sound again.

Not the pulling sound from last night. Something different. Something that feels dangerously close to hope, and hope is the thing I cannot afford, and I am going to take another pill and go to the library and write Dreston 's economics outline notes and not think about storm-grey eyes or the word almost spoken in a corridor.

From the dining room, clearly, I hear Kade Mercer's voice

"So. The boy. Remy Dusk."

A pause.

Then Zane's voice, level and uninflected "What about him?"

"You've looked at him three times."

Silence.

"Zane."

"Eat your breakfast, Kade."

I push off the wall.

I walk to the library.

My hands are not shaking.

They are not.