From His Luna to His Rival's Mate

Chapter 25

SELENE

NEXT DAY

Calder was waiting for me outside the infirmary, he stood a few feet from the door with his arms crossed and his back against the wall, looking like someone who had been there for a while and hadn't decided yet how he felt about that, his eyes found me the moment I stepped out and he pushed off the wall and straightened up.

"Can we talk?" he asked.

It wasn't a demand. I looked at him for a moment. "Where?"

"Somewhere quiet, the east courtyard is empty this time of day."

I considered telling him I was tired, which was true. I considered telling him my shoulder hurt, which was also true.

But something in the way he was standing stopped me. Shoulders not quite as rigid as usual, he looked like a man carrying something he was finally tired of holding alone.

"Fine," I said. "But not long."

We walked to the east courtyard without talking, the afternoon light fell in long strips across the stone benches and the old oak tree in the corner threw a wide shadow over the grass.

I sat down on the nearest bench and kept my bandaged shoulder angled away from him. He sat across from me and rested his elbows on his knees and for a few seconds neither of us said anything.

"I owe you an apology," he said finally.

I kept my face still. "For which part?"

He looked up at me, something moved behind his eyes, something that looked like it had been sitting there for a while waiting for the right moment. "For all of it. The way I have treated you since you got here, the way I acted in the courtyard." He paused. "I have not been handling things well. I know that."

I studied his face, he meant it. I could see that clearly enough, he just looked tired and honest and a little raw around the edges.

"You scared people," I said. "The way you confronted Kael in front of everyone, that was not just handling things badly, that was losing control."

He didn't flinch away from it. "I know, and I'm sorry."

The apology sat between us in the afternoon air. Calder apologizing was not something I had experienced often.

In my previous life he had never once said those two words to me directly. Hearing them now, in this life, from someone who didn't even know the full weight of what he was apologizing for, landed somewhere complicated inside me.

I didn't say I forgave him, I wasn't there yet. "Thank you," I said instead.

He nodded slowly, then his expression shifted, the openness closed down just slightly, like a window brought mostly shut. "I need to say something else."

"Go ahead."

His eyes came back up to mine. "Stay away from Kael Voss."

I felt my shoulders settle back, there it was. "Excuse me?" I said.

"I am not trying to tell you what to do." He held up one hand briefly. "I am warning you. Kael is not what he looks like. He is hiding things, dangerous things. I don't know exactly what they are, but I have seen enough to know he is not safe to be close to."

I looked at him calmly. "He pulled an arrow out of my shoulder last night and eased the pain with his bare hand. That does not feel like something an unsafe person does."

"That is exactly what worries me." Calder's voice stayed level but his eyes had gone sharper. "Where did that ability come from? Why does he hide it? What else is he hiding that we do not know about? You do not know this man, Selene."

"And you do?"

He pressed his lips together. "I know enough to be careful."

I turned slightly on the bench to face him more directly. My shoulder protested the movement and I ignored it.

"I appreciate that you are worried. I do. But I am not going to stay away from someone who has done nothing but help me because it makes you uncomfortable." I kept my voice even. "That is not a conversation I am going to have, Calder."

His jaw worked and he looked like he wanted to push harder and was making a visible effort not to.

"I am not asking because of what is between us. I am asking because I think you are in real danger and I don't want you getting hurt worse than you already are."

"I got shot with a silver arrow," I said. "Kael was not the one who did that."

"No." His eyes held mine. "But the people who did might be connected to things that are already following him. I do not have proof yet. But something is off about him, something has always been off."

I stood up carefully, keeping my arm steady. "If you get proof, tell me. Until then, who I spend time with is my decision." I looked down at him. "Are we done?"

He sat there for a moment, looking up at me with something frustrated and worried and tangled all together in his expression, then he stood up too. "Just be careful," he said. "That is all I am asking."

"I am always careful."

He looked at me like he wanted to say something else, then he let it go. He nodded once and walked away across the courtyard, his hands pushed into his pockets, his shoulders carrying that weight they never seemed to fully put down. I watched him until he turned the corner.

My room felt quiet when I got back. I closed the door and sat on the edge of my bed and let myself exhale properly for the first time since the infirmary.

My shoulder ached, my head was full. I wanted about three hours of uninterrupted silence and maybe a hot drink. What I got was Elara.

She appeared from her side of the room almost immediately, like she had been waiting. She was already wearing her most concerned expression, the one with the slightly furrowed brow and the soft eyes that she deployed the way other people deployed umbrellas, ready at the first sign of rain.

"Selene." She crossed the room and sat on the end of her own bed, angling herself toward me. "I saw you talking to Calder outside. Are you okay? What did he say?"

"Nothing important," I said.

Elara's expression shifted into something gentler and more patient. "You can tell me. I know things between you two are complicated. I just want to help if I can."

I looked at her. "There is nothing to help with."

She clasped her hands together in her lap. "I know Calder can be a lot to deal with. He has a hard time expressing himself sometimes. He does not always say things the right way." She tilted her head slightly.

"But he does care about you. I have seen it. Whatever happened between you two, I don't think his feelings are fake."

"I didn't say they were."

"I know." She smiled gently. "I just think if you gave him a little more room, a little more patience, things might be easier. For both of you." She paused.

"And Kael..." She let the name sit for a second. "I worry about you spending so much time with him. People are talking, and he is just so closed off. Nobody really knows anything about him. Do they?"

I looked at her for a long, quiet moment, she held my gaze with that gentle, open expression perfectly in place. Warm eyes and soft smile. Hands folded neatly, the picture of a concerned friend just trying to help.

But she had just told me to give Calder more patience and questioned Kael in the same two minutes. Same message as Calder's warning, wrapped in a completely different package and delivered with a smile instead of a sharp look but pointing in the exact same direction. Interesting.

"I appreciate you checking on me," I said. I kept my voice easy and unbothered. "I am going to rest now."

Elara held the smile for a bit longer than necessary, then she stood up gracefully and moved back to her side of the room. "Of course. You need to heal." She glanced back once. "I am always here if you need to talk, about anything."

"I know," I said.

I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling, two warnings about Kael but neither of them had given me a single real reason, that told me more than either of them probably intended.