Elowen's POV
My head snapped up from Sable's fur.
"I don't have a boyfriend," I blurted, and the heat rushed up my neck so fast I could feel it burning in my ears. "It's not because of that."
Kael watched me stammer through the denial without a single change in his expression. He stubbed out the cigarette on the windowsill, let out a quiet "Mm," and walked toward the study without another word.
I blinked at the empty doorway and waited for more, but more never came.
One minute I was crying into Sable's fur over Bastian and Delphine, and the next I was sitting there red-faced and sputtering about boyfriends like a child caught stealing sweets. It reminded me of that first day in Moonhollow, when he'd casually asked whether I could be sent to an orphanage and I'd been so stunned I forgo
