ELARA POV
Arthur arrived at the door at precisely the same hour he had arrived the two mornings before, early enough that the light was still deciding what it wanted to be, late enough that refusing to answer felt deliberate rather than accidental.
I had stopped pretending I might not answer.
I opened the door before he knocked.
He looked at me with that expression I was beginning to recognize, not quite amusement, not quite approval, something that lived in the narrow space between them and refused to commit to either. He was not a tall man, not broad the way the Alphas I had known were broad, carrying their size like a declaration. Arthur carried himself differently. Compactly. Like someone who had learned a long time ago that power rarely needed to announce itself and had adjuste
