CHAPTER FOUR — CRACKS
858 Words
"You don't have to prove yourself here," Kade said. "No one is asking you to."
"No one is asking me to," I agreed. "That's not why I'm doing it."
He had found me in the library after lunch — or more likely he had someone tell him I was there, which amounted to the same thing. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor with three books about Silverstone's pack history spread open around me, taking notes in the margin of a small notebook I'd found in my room.
He had walked in. Looked at the books. Looked at me.
And said his line.
I looked up at him now. He was standing a few feet away, his arms loose at his sides, which I had already learned was his neutral stance — not relaxed, but not braced either. Just ready for whatever came next.
"You were at training this morning," he said.
"I was."
"You weren't invited."
"The grounds are listed as open-access before seven," I said. "I read the estate rules Sera gave me. I followed them."
Something moved in his jaw. Not quite a reaction, but almost.
"Why?" he said.
"Because I needed to move."
"You could walk the grounds."
"I could," I said. "I chose to run."
He looked at the books around me. "And this?"
"I'm trying to understand where I am." I held up the notebook. "Silverstone's last three territorial agreements. Pack structure going back forty years. Your father's Alpha term and how it ended."
The air shifted.
I had said the last sentence deliberately. Not to wound — I genuinely needed the information — but I wanted to see how he responded to directness.
He went very still.
"My father," he said quietly, "is not in those books."
"He's in the border records from twelve years ago," I said, meeting his eyes. "I didn't read past the index yet. I wanted to know if you'd tell me yourself first."
He was looking at me differently now. That same recalibration from yesterday, but deeper.
"You're testing me," he said.
"I'm learning," I said. "It looks similar sometimes."
He was quiet for a long moment.
Then he did something I had not expected.
He pulled up a chair — not far, not close, just to the edge of the spread of books — and he sat down.
"The border records from twelve years ago," he said, "are incomplete. My father made an agreement with Ashfen Pack that the official documents don't fully reflect."
I picked up my pen.
"Tell me," I said.
He looked at my notebook. Looked at my face. And then, with the careful, measured tone of someone who has not spoken about something in a long time, he began.
He talked for twenty minutes.
Not everything — I could feel the places where he chose different words, where he steered around things that were too close. But he talked. About the agreement. About Ashfen. About the years when Silverstone was smaller and less certain and his father was trying to hold it together with deals that cost more than they paid.
I wrote and listened and did not push.
When he stopped, the silence was different from before. Less like a wall, more like an open window.
"Your mother," he said. Not quite a question.
I went still.
"The debt," I said. "Yes."
"You didn't know about it."
"No."
He looked at my hands. At the way I was holding my pen very carefully.
"I know what it's like," he said quietly. "To be held accountable for someone else's choices."
I raised my eyes.
His face was still steady. Still closed. But something underneath it was not.
I didn't say anything. I just looked at him, and he looked back, and for about five seconds neither of us performed anything.
Then he stood.
"Don't stay in here all afternoon," he said, reverting to the even, Alpha tone. "Sera will bring the full territorial files if you want them."
"Thank you," I said.
He nodded once and left.
I sat in the quiet of the library with my notebook open and my pen still in my hand, and I thought about grey eyes that went a few shades warmer when he wasn't watching himself.
Just a few degrees. Just for a moment.
You're in there somewhere, Kade Blackthorn, I thought. And that might be the most dangerous thing I've found in this building yet.
That evening, I found a note slipped under my door.
Not from Kade. The handwriting was different — smaller, precise, almost too neat.
You're asking questions you don't understand yet. Stop while you can. This is not a warning from an enemy.
No name.
I read it twice.
Then I folded it and put it with the one from Marcus's conversation in my pocket, pressed between the pages of my notebook.
Two people watching me. One openly. One anonymously.
And somewhere in this pack, a storm that everyone could feel building and nobody wanted to name first.
I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at the door.
What am I standing in the middle of?
- Writer
