Chapter Three
1008 Words
Lila's POV
The restaurant buzzed with the low chatter of students, but the moment Ryker and I stepped through the door, the noise dipped, just slightly, just enough for me to notice. Heads turned. Whispers followed. I kept my chin up and my eyes forward, the way I imagined someone braver than me might do it.
We took a corner booth, the kind tucked half behind a pillar, though it did nothing to hide us. Ryker slid into his seat across from me like none of it touched him at all.
"They're staring," I said, keeping my voice low.
"Let them stare." He picked up the menu without even glancing at the room. "Staring never hurt anybody."
"Easy for you to say. You've had an audience your whole life."
That earned the smallest curve of his mouth. "Fair point."
A waiter came, took our orders, and disappeared. The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable exactly, but it sat heavy between us, full of everything neither of us had said yet.
"So," I said finally, "what do we do? About the elders. About the whole declare-or-reject thing."
"Nothing." He said it so simply I blinked. "We don't go."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." He leaned back, arms crossing behind his head like the decision cost him nothing at all. "No summons, no ceremony, no standing in front of a room full of old men pretending we don't feel what we feel. They can't force a bond apart that's already happened, Lila. It's done. It snapped. There's no undoing it, whether they like it or not."
"Your father seems to think otherwise."
"My father thinks a lot of things. Doesn't make him right."
I turned my water glass slowly between my fingers, watching the condensation bead against my skin. "He hates me. I felt it the second I walked into that dining room."
"He doesn't hate you." Ryker's voice dropped, quieter now. "He hates what you represent. A bond he can't control, a scandal he didn't plan for. It's never really about the person with him. It's about what the person threatens."
"That's somehow worse."
"Maybe." He shrugged, but his eyes stayed steady on mine. "Doesn't change anything for me."
The food arrived, and for a while we ate without talking. We gazed at each other with unhidden passion. I finally worked up the nerve to ask the question that had been sitting in my chest since the vision in the forest.
"Tell me about your mother," I said. "Victor's never mentioned her. Not once."
He hesitated, then let out a long sigh. "She died when I was six. Car accident, or that's the story I was told, anyway." He turned his fork over in his hand, not quite looking at me. "Victor doesn't talk about her because talking about her means admitting he loved someone before he started collecting bloodlines like assets."
"Ryker. You're insinuating he doesn't love my mum?"
"Let's not ruin our lunch. Back to my mum, I don't even remember her voice anymore. Just fragments. She used to hum when she cooked. That's basically all I have left."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It was a long time ago." He finally looked up, and smiled. "Your turn. Tell me about the town you grew up in. Before all this."
I found myself smiling despite everything. "It was small and quiet. Everyone knew everyone, which sounds nice until you realize it means everyone also knew your business before you did." I traced the rim of my glass. "My dad died when I was young. I don't remember much about him either, honestly. My mom raised me on her own after that, worked two jobs some years. We didn't have much, but we had each other."
"Sounds better than growing up in a house that felt more like a corporate office than a home."
"I don't know. I used to watch shows about houses like this one and think they looked like heaven." I glanced around at the restaurant, at the students still stealing glances our way, at the whole gleaming, complicated world I'd been dropped into. "Now I'm not so sure."
"Heaven's overrated," Ryker said, and there was something wry in it, something almost fond. "Trust me."
"You were brave with those fighting stunts."
Heat crept up my neck, and I looked down at my plate to hide it. "I didn't feel brave. I felt like I was drowning."
"Looked like the opposite from where I was standing." His eyes dims seductively, revealing his long lashes.
~Stop looking at me like that.~ I didn't say it out loud. I wasn't sure I wanted him to stop, and that scared me more than anything Victor had said in his office.
"Can I ask you something?" I said instead, changing course before the moment could pull me into the desire building up. "In the forest, when I had the vision. You said I shouldn't have been able to see that, since I'm not a wolf. What did you mean?"
His expression shifted, careful now, measured. "Memories don't usually pass through the bond that easily. Not for someone still fully human. It should take months, sometimes years, before a bonded pair can share anything that deep. You did it in one kiss, on the first night." He studied me like I was something he hadn't figured out yet. "That's not normal, Lila. Not even a little."
"So what am I, then?"
"I don't know." For the first time, uncertainty crossed his face, and it unsettled me. "But whatever it is, it's not something the elders are ready for. And honestly, I don't think you are either. Not yet."
"That's comforting," I said dryly.
"I never said it'd be comforting." A small, genuine smile broke through, the kind that didn't have an audience in mind.
We sat there a while longer, the restaurant slowly emptying around us, our conversation drifting into smaller things, favorite foods, classes we hated, the ridiculous rules Aldric enforced about curfew. It felt, for a little while, normal.
- Writer
