Chapter 62 I am right here

Chapter 62 I am right here
Jeremy's POV

I was at my desk when the door opened without a knock.

Mia.

She closed the door behind her. Leaned against it for a second. Her eyes moving over me the way they always did. Like she was checking I was still real. Still there. Still alive.

"We need to talk." She said.

"I'm working Mia."

"Jeremy." Her voice had an edge to it. "This is important."

I set down my pen. Leaned back. Looked at her.

"Talk." I said.

She moved into the room. Slowly. Arms folded across her chest. She stopped in front of my desk and looked at me for a long moment before she spoke.

"Lady Margaret." She said.

Something shifted in my chest. I kept my face still.

"What about her."

"I think she's working with Benjamin." Mia said it straight. No buildup. Just dropped it right in front of me like a stone.

I stared at her.

"That's a serious thing to say."

"I know what I saw Jeremy." She stepped closer. Her hands coming down flat on the edge of my desk. "I have seen them together. Not once. Not twice. Back to back. For the past few days. Heads together. Talking low. Moving like they know each other." Her eyes didn't flinch. "That is not coincidence."

I said nothing.

"Jeremy."

"Where did you see them." My voice came out even. Controlled.

"The back street near the east hedge two nights ago." She said. "And before that at the edge of the training ground after dark." She straightened up. "A woman who is just a visiting lady from the South has no business meeting secretly with a man like Benjamin after dark. Multiple times."

The room was very quiet.

I picked up my pen. Put it down again.

"Who gave you this information." I asked.
Something moved across her face. Fast.

"I saw it myself."

"You were at the east hedge after dark."

"I was walking Jeremy. I couldn't sleep."

I looked at her for a long moment.

She held my gaze. Didn't look away.

"Why are you telling me this." I said quietly.

"Because you need to know." She came around the side of the desk. Slow. Deliberate. "Because someone in this pack house might be feeding Benjamin information and you are sitting here like everything is fine." She stopped right beside my chair. Looking down at me. "I am telling you because I care what happens to you."

I said nothing. Honestly, I don't know to react to this.

She moved closer.

Then she sat.

Right on my lap.

Her hand came up to my jaw. Soft. Warm. Fingers turning my face toward hers.
"Jeremy." She whispered. "Look at me."
I looked.

Her eyes were close. Her face was close. The familiar smell of her perfume filling the space between us.

"I am right here." She said quietly. "I have always been right here."

Her body shifted against mine. Deliberately. Slowly. The way she knew how to.

And for a moment I let it happen. A moment of nothing. Of trying. Of telling myself to just feel something. Anything.

Nothing came.

I reached up and took her wrist gently. Moved her hand away from my face.

Then I shifted. Moving her off my lap. Setting her to the side. Not hard. Not cold. Just done.

"Jeremy—"

"Don't." I said quietly.

She stood. Her face tight now. That carefully constructed softness cracking slightly at the edges.

"Why." She said. And underneath the single word was something sharp. Something that had been building for a long time. "Why Jeremy. Just tell me why." She gestured with her hand. "First it was Zoe. That slave girl. That prisoner you couldn't stop watching." Her voice climbed slightly. "And now it's this Margaret woman who appeared from nowhere and you cannot take your eyes off her for one evening." She pressed her hand flat against her stomach. "I am carrying your child. I am right here. I have been right here. What does she have that I don't."

"Mia—"

"No." She shook her head. "No. Don't Mia me. Just answer the question. What is it about these women that makes you look at them like that. Like they are something you have never seen before." Her voice dropped. "Like you have never once looked at me that way."

I stood up.

Moved to the window.

Looked out at the grounds below.

"You should rest." I said.

"I don't want to rest."

"The baby needs—"

"Don't use the baby right now Jeremy." Her voice cracked on the last word. Just slightly. "I am talking to you. As a woman who is supposed to be your future Luna. I am asking you to just look at me. Really look. And try."

The grounds below were quiet. A few warriors crossing the yard. A child chasing a dog near the gate.

I watched them.

"What you saw." I said finally. "Margaret and Benjamin. Tell James everything. Every detail. Where. When. What they were doing."
Silence behind me.

"That's all you took from what I just said." Her voice was flat now. All the fire gone out of it.

I turned around.

She was standing in the middle of the room. Arms at her sides. Eyes bright. Not crying. Just bright. The way eyes get when someone is holding everything in by force.

She looked at me for a long moment.

Then she laughed. Short. Hollow. One sound with no joy in it.

"Okay Jeremy." She said softly. "Okay."
She walked to the door. Opened it.
Stopped with her back to me.

"For what it's worth." She said quietly. "I hope whatever it is you're looking for. I hope you find it." Her hand tightened on the door handle. "I just hope when you do. It doesn't destroy everything around it first."

She walked out.

The door closed behind her.

I stood at the window for a long time after that.

Not thinking about Mia.

Not thinking about Benjamin.

Thinking about a woman standing at the edge of a crowd with a cup she wasn't drinking from. Lantern light on the side of her face. Eyes that found mine across a garden and didn't look away.

Margaret.

I need to end all of this. But how?