Chapter 60 NADIA

Chapter 60 NADIA
The council review was tomorrow.

I lay there staring at the ceiling for a good forty minutes before I gave up, threw the covers off, and went to the kitchen. I wasn't even thirsty. I just needed somewhere to be that wasn't my own head.

I filled a glass with water and stood at the counter drinking it slowly, not really tasting it. The apartment was quiet. The city outside was noisy but I barely heard it. I was too busy running tomorrow's session in my head over and over, finding the parts that could fall apart.

I was halfway through the glass when I heard footsteps.

Zane appeared in the doorway. He was in a t-shirt and sweats, hair slightly messy, and he looked at me the way he always did, like he was already two seconds ahead of whatever I was about to say.

He said, "You're not sleeping."

"Sharp instincts,” I replied.

He smiled and came into the kitchen to look at the table. Petra's files were spread across every inch of it. Then he hopped up onto the counter across from me instead, settling there like it was the most natural thing in the world.

I remained standing. We were quiet for a moment, but it wasn't uncomfortable. That was the thing about the silence between us now. It had changed. In the beginning, it had been full of everything neither of us was saying, with all that weight sitting in the air, but now it was just space with just us in it.

“What if I freeze?" I asked.

“You won't."

"You don't know that."

“I know you walked into an alley and faced your father while knowing things that would have broken most people, and even then you didn't freeze.” Zane looked at me. "So no, you won't."

I breathed. He was right, probably. I knew he was right. But knowing something and feeling it were two different things.

I set my glass down. "After tomorrow, if the review goes the way Petra thinks it will, what will happen to Marcus?"

"He’ll lose his council protection. Legally, he can't operate in this city or any city with a supernatural council in charge. If he moves against any pack after that, enforcement can come down on him hard." He paused. "He won't disappear, though. Men like that don't disappear."

"No," I said. "They just become the next problem."

"Yeah." He didn't try to dress that up, which I appreciated. He just said it plainly and let it settle.

I looked at my water glass on the counter. I thought about the session tomorrow. I thought about Maria and Ferguson, then the nine seats, and the forty-seven minutes of my own voice recounting everything I'd done. 

I thought about my father's face the last time I saw it, and how even then—even after everything—I'd looked for something in his expression that wasn't there.

I crossed the kitchen. I stopped in front of Zane where he was sitting on the counter, close enough that I had to look up a little to see his face, and then I placed my hands on his chest, just resting there. He put his hands over mine without hesitating, his touch feeling warm and easy.

“I need to ask you something,” I said softly.

"Okay."

"The fated mate thing," I said. "What does it actually mean to you? I’m not talking about what it’s supposed to mean to you generally, no. What does it mean to you, personally?"

He was quiet for a moment. He looked at me sincerely, and then he said it carefully, like he was saying something that actually mattered to him.

"It means I was already choosing you before I knew there was a choice," he said. "It means I looked at everything I built here and knew something was missing, and then you walked in, and I spent twelve weeks telling myself you were just a problem to figure out before I admitted what I actually knew." He paused. "It means I want to build something with you. Not because of what you can contribute to the pack, but because of who you are when no one's watching." He squeezed my hands once. "That's what it means to me."

I looked at him for a long moment. Then I leaned forward and kissed him, completely sure of what I was doing. There was no urgency or crisis driving it. It was just me deciding that this was what I wanted and doing it.

He kissed me back the same way.

When we pulled back, I rested my forehead against his collarbone. He wrapped both arms around me. I stayed there until that tight thing in my chest loosened enough that I could breathe around it properly.

Then I said, "I should sleep."

“Yeah,” he murmured.

I pushed off the counter and went back to the hallway. I paused at the doorway and looked back at him, still sitting there in the low kitchen light.

"Thank you," I said. "For being up."

"I wasn't asleep either,” he replied.

I went back to my room, got into bed, and closed my eyes. For the first time in days, I didn't run through what just happened in my head. I didn't look for the places it could fall apart. I just let myself lie there and breathe until sleep found me.

I slept.

When I woke up, everything looked grey and cold. I sat up and checked the time. Then I got out of bed, got dressed, tied my hair back, and looked at myself in the mirror for a few seconds.

Then I went out to face it.

The elevator ride down was quiet. The lobby was quiet. The car Petra had arranged was already waiting at the curb, engine running. I got in, and the driver pulled out into the grey morning traffic without a word, while I sat in the back with my hands in my lap, making sure my heartbeat was steady and even.

Through the window, all I could see were normal streets, normal buildings, and normal people walking dogs, carrying coffee cups, and living their completely ordinary lives.

Nobody out there knew what was about to happen in that room.
I watched them go by and thought about Zane's voice in the kitchen. 

“I was already choosing you before I knew there was a choice.”

I faced forward.

The car turned onto the block with the building that looked like an insurance firm, and I took one slow breath.

I was ready.