THE MATE THE ROGUE ALPHA WAS MEANT TO KILL

Chapter 16—The Surprise

Elara's POV

He was already at the garden when I arrived, sitting on the bench with a small paper bag beside him and that unhurried stillness he carried everywhere, and he looked up when he heard my footsteps with an expression that was warmer than his usual calm in a way I was starting to recognise as specifically reserved for me, and something about that thought alone was enough to make the walk from the main building feel considerably shorter than it actually was.

I sat beside him and he did not say anything immediately, just reached into the paper bag and set things on the bench between us one at a time, and I looked down and felt something unexpected move through my chest because it was my favourite chocolate, the specific kind from the market on the east side of town that I had mentioned once in passing without any expectation that anyone was actually listening, and the pastries from the bakery I had described to him during one of our conversations, the ones I associated with slow Sunday mornings and good company.

"You remembered," I said, and I heard the surprise in my own voice before I could smooth it out.

"You told me," he said simply, like that was explanation enough, and maybe it was.

I picked up the chocolate and turned it over in my hands and felt something settle warmly in my chest that had nothing to do with the gift itself and everything to do with what it meant, that he had listened, actually listened, to the small things I said without flagging them as important, and had gone and found them anyway.

"There is something else," he said, and reached into his jacket pocket and set a small box on the bench beside me.

I looked at him, then at the box, then opened it slowly.

It was a bracelet, slim and silver, and I turned it over and saw my name engraved along the inside of the band in small neat letters and I sat with it for a moment without speaking because I did not immediately have the right words and I did not want to reach for the wrong ones.

"Ravin," I said finally.

"You do not have to wear it," he said, which was the same thing Kael had said about the necklace and yet it landed completely differently, because the way Ravin said it was not a hedge or a retreat, it was just the truth, offered without pressure or expectation.

"I want to wear it," and I meant it, and I held it out to him and he took it and fastened it around my wrist with the same careful unhurried attention he brought to everything, his fingers warm against my skin, and when he was done he did not let go of my hand immediately and I did not pull away.

We sat like that for a moment and then I remembered and said, "I agreed to a training session with Kael on Friday."

The quality of the silence changed slightly, barely perceptible, but I noticed it because I had been paying attention to him long enough to recognise when something landed differently than the rest of the conversation.

"Training," Ravin said.

"With the school pack," I said, watching his face. "He made a reasonable argument about understanding my wolf better and I agreed to one session."

"One session," he repeated, and his voice was perfectly level and his expression was perfectly calm and both of those things were doing very little to hide the thing underneath them, which I was choosing to call quiet displeasure but which had another name that I was not going to say out loud right now because I was enjoying this slightly.

"You are not going to say anything?" I said.

"It is your decision," he said.

"It is," I agreed pleasantly.

He looked at me and I looked back at him and the corner of his mouth moved in a way that said he was aware that I had noticed and was choosing not to confirm it, and I smiled and looked down at the bracelet on my wrist and decided to let him have his dignity about it because some things were more enjoyable when you did not push them all the way to the surface.

We talked for a while longer, easy and unhurried the way our conversations always were, and I ate the chocolate and shared the pastries with him and he watched me eat with an expression that was quietly satisfied in a way that made me feel seen in a manner I was still getting used to, and the afternoon settled into the comfortable kind of quiet that had started to feel like something I looked forward to rather than just something that happened.

When I finally gathered my things to leave he stood with me, and I had taken two steps toward the path when his hand closed gently around my wrist, not pulling, just stopping, and I turned back.

He was looking at me with an expression I had not seen from him before, something more open than his usual calm, something that had a weight to it that I felt before he even spoke.

"There is something I need to tell you," he said quietly.

I turned back to look at him. "What is it?"

He looked at me for a moment, then the corner of his mouth moved and he reached out and took my hand and said, "Sit down."

I sat, and my heart was doing something I had absolutely no control over, loud and anticipatory and completely unhelpful, and I looked at him and waited.