The Alpha Who Begged

Too Many Answers

Mira

I decided to leave at six in the morning.

Not Shadowfang entirely. Alliance was signed. That part was finished. No version of leaving that undid the work.

But the remaining three days. The days I’d noticed myself deciding to stay for, standing at the window the night before, counting leaves I had no business counting.

Six in the morning was the hour you made decisions you wouldn’t examine too closely if you waited until seven.

Hadn’t slept. Lain in the dark turning over the four or five seconds in the great hall. Roman’s eyes finding mine across the room. Stillness in his face. Way neither of us had looked away first so much as we’d both, eventually, simply stopped looking at the same moment.

Turned it over until it wore a groove in my thinking. Single thought with an entire night and nothing to interrupt it.

By dawn I had a plan.

Plan was: leave.

Found Cael in the small dining room off the kitchen, where he always was in the mornings. Cup of something hot in front of him and a stack of correspondence he was working through before the day’s obligations started.

Looked up when I came in. Read something in my face before I’d said a word. Good at that. Infuriatingly good. Three years practice reading me before I’d decided what I was going to say.

“Morning,” he said.

“We should leave early,” I said.

Set down the correspondence. Didn’t look surprised, which told me something. Either he’d been expecting this, or he’d stopped being surprised by my decisions some time ago. Not entirely different things.

“Today?” he said.

“Tomorrow. Forfeit the remaining three days. Framework is signed. Nothing left that requires our physical presence.”

“That’s true,” he said.

Waited for him to agree. He didn’t agree.

Picked his cup back up and drank from it. Unhurried. Particular slowness of a man who’d decided a conversation needed more time than the other person was offering it.

“Why?” he said.

Opened my mouth.

Had several answers ready. Constructed them somewhere in the long hours of not sleeping. Way I constructed most things. Methodically. With contingencies. Prepared for scrutiny.

Answer about administrative efficiency. Value of returning to Silvercrest promptly to manage the alliance’s implementation from our side instead of overseeing it from a guest wing in someone else’s territory.

Answer about resource allocation. Cost of maintaining our delegation’s presence here three additional days that served no clear strategic purpose.

Answer about Dray. Legitimate, this one. Heard secondhand he’d requested a private audience with Roman and didn’t trust whatever that conversation produced.

All of them true.

None of them the answer.

Stood in the small dining room with Cael watching me with patient, knowing attention, and understood. Not for the first time, but more clearly than I’d let myself understand before. Had too many true answers and the abundance of them was itself the problem.

Person with one good reason gives the reason. Person with five gives none. Five are covering for the sixth. Real one. Doesn’t fit cleanly into a sentence she’s willing to say out loud.

Closed my mouth. Opened it again.

“The administrative—” I started.

“Mira.”

Just my name. Quiet. Specific quiet he used when he wanted me to hear what he wasn’t saying as clearly as what he was.

Stopped.

We looked at each other across the small table.

Outside, kitchen was coming to life. Voices. Sound of something being moved. Ordinary morning machinery of a pack house.

In here it was very quiet.

“Saw something last night,” I said. “At the gathering.”

He waited.

“Roman,” I said. “Something happened to him. Physically, briefly. He caught himself and no one noticed except me.”

Paused. “And he knew I’d seen it.”

“Okay,” Cael said.

“That’s not—” I stopped. Tried again. “That’s not a reason to leave.”

“No,” he agreed. “It isn’t.”

Looked at him. He hadn’t moved. Sitting with cup in both hands, watching me with same patient attention. Not pushing. Not filling silence for me. Just present in the specific way Cael was always present. There for as long as it took. Willing to wait through whatever I needed to work through before I said the actual thing.

“Think I should go,” I said, “because I don’t want to know more than I already know.”

Set the cup down.

“That’s the first true thing you’ve said this morning,” he said.

Sat down across from him.

Hadn’t planned to sit down. Planned to deliver decision and let it be a decision. Finished. Not open for negotiation. But legs had apparently decided otherwise. Sitting across small table from person who knew me better than anyone currently living, and conversation wasn’t going to be as short as I’d wanted it to be.

“What do you know,” he said, “that you don’t want to know more of?”

Considered how much to tell him.

Cael had earned more honesty than I’d been giving him. Not just this morning. Entire visit. Entire careful performance of professional distance I’d been maintaining around a situation that stopped being purely professional somewhere in last two weeks and I hadn’t told him when.

“He’s sick,” I said. “Seriously. Don’t have all of it but have enough.”

Cael’s expression didn’t change.

“I know.”

Looked at him.

“You know?”

“I’ve had eyes too, Mira. Not blind to a failing Alpha just because I’m not the one with history here.”

That landed somewhere I hadn’t expected it to land. Been so focused on my own observations, my own careful accumulation of evidence, hadn’t considered Cael might’ve been watching same things and reaching same conclusions without saying anything either.

“Why didn’t you say something?” I said.

“Because it wasn’t mine to say.”

Said it simple. Without weight. Way he said most true things.

“It’s yours. Whatever it is. Wasn’t going to hand you a conversation you needed to have with yourself.”

Sat with that.

Outside, someone laughed. Kitchen staff. Burst of sound through wall. Ordinary and unconnected to anything happening in this room. Listened to it fade and thought about what Cael had just said. Generosity of a man who’d clearly understood more about my situation than I’d given him credit for and chose, deliberately, to let me find my own way to it instead of pushing me there.

“Don’t know what to do with what I know,” I said.

“I’m aware.”

“That’s why I want to leave.”

“I know that too.”

Leaned back slightly. Quiet a moment, turning something over the way he did. Particular stillness that meant he was choosing next words with care instead of saying first thing available.

“Here’s what I think,” he said. “You can leave tomorrow if you want to leave tomorrow. I’ll have delegation ready. Won’t ask you for better reason than one you’ve already half-given me.”

Paused.

“But don’t think leaving is actually what you want. Think it’s what you think you’re supposed to want.”

Said nothing.

“And those aren’t the same thing,” he said. “You taught me that, actually. Few years ago. Just returning it.”

Didn’t have an answer for that.

Sat in small dining room with untouched tea going cold and morning continuing around us. Ordinary and unconcerned with specific weight of conversation at this table. Understood Cael had just done something difficult and generous and entirely characteristic of him. Told me truth about myself without making it about him. Without claiming stake in what I decided. Without even fully revealing what it might cost him if I decided the way he seemed to think I would decide.

“Don’t know what I want,” I said finally.

“I know,” he said. “That’s fine. Don’t have to know yet.”

“The delegation—”

“Can wait three more days,” he said. “Already waited two weeks. Three more won’t break anything.”

Stood up. Gathered correspondence. At door he stopped, way he always seemed to stop at doors when he had one more thing to say. Particular habit I’d stopped finding endearing and started finding necessary, because things he said at doors were usually things that mattered most.

“Whatever you decide,” he said, “decide it because it’s true. Not because it’s safe.”

Left.

I Sat alone in small dining room with cold tea and morning light coming through window. Thought about safe and true and didn’t go pack notes for early departure.

I Stayed where I was a long time.