Chapter 128

Chapter 128
Fiona’s POV

I stood on the other side of the door for exactly three seconds before I pressed my back against it and held my breath. The logical part of my brain was telling me to do exactly what Blake said and go upstairs. The other part, the part that had gotten me into more trouble than I could count since moving to Black Forest, was already pressing its ear against the wood.
I could hear him on the other side, his footsteps slow and deliberate as he moved off the porch. Then silence. The kind that felt too heavy to be nothing.
I pushed off the door and made my way to the living room window instead, pulling the curtain back just enough to see the front yard. Blake was standing at the edge of the porch steps, perfectly still, his eyes trained on the tree line. Even from here I could see the tension running through his shoulders. Whatever was out there, it had his full attention.
I let the curtain fall back before he could catch me looking and pressed myself against the wall beside the window like that made any difference. A werewolf with his senses was going to know I hadn’t gone upstairs the second he walked back through that door.
Sure enough, not two minutes later I heard the front door open and close behind him. I straightened up quickly and tried to look like I had simply been passing through. Blake stood in the doorway of the living room with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
“I was just getting some water,” I said.
He looked pointedly at my empty hands.
I clasped them behind my back. “I changed my mind.”
The corner of his mouth twitched despite himself before his expression settled back into something more serious. He crossed the room and stopped in front of me, his hand coming up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. His touch was gentle but his eyes were doing that thing where they went somewhere distant even while looking directly at me.
“What was it?” I asked quietly.
His jaw shifted. “Probably nothing.”
“Blake.”
He let out a slow breath and looked down at me for a long moment. “A scent. Faint, could’ve been carried by the wind from a few miles out. Nothing on the territory.”
I studied his face. “But?”
“But it wasn’t familiar.”
The words sat between us and I knew better than to push further right now. I also knew that faint and carried by the wind did not exactly explain the way every muscle in his body had locked up on that porch. He was downplaying it and we both knew it.
I nodded slowly, deciding to let it go for tonight. He watched me like he was waiting for an argument and when I didn’t give him one, something in his posture eased slightly. He pressed a kiss to my forehead and murmured, “Get some sleep, love. Big day tomorrow.”
I pulled back to look at him. “What’s happening tomorrow?”
“Sara’s baby shower is Saturday. Linda needs help setting up at the pack house tomorrow afternoon and she’s already drafted you.”
I blinked. “She didn’t mention that to me.”
“She mentioned it to me and told me to tell you.” He paused. “I’m telling you now.”
I stared at him. “Blake, that’s tomorrow.”
“I’m aware.”
“You couldn’t have told me this at dinner?”
“I forgot.” He said it so simply that I almost believed him. Almost.
I pointed a finger at his chest. “You absolutely did not forget.”
He caught my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles with a completely unbothered expression. I narrowed my eyes at him before giving up and heading toward the stairs. I could hear the quiet sound of him following behind me and despite everything, the unease that had settled in my chest since that moment on the porch, I felt steadier with him close. It was one of those things I had stopped trying to explain. It just was.
I was almost at the top of the stairs when his voice reached me from just behind.
“Fiona.”
I turned. He was a step below me which put us almost at eye level for once and he was looking at me in that particular way he had that made everything else feel smaller. His hand came up and rested against the side of my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone once.
“I’m not going to let anything near you,” he said quietly. Not a reassurance. A fact.
I held his gaze for a moment before nodding. “I know.”
And I did. That was the thing about Blake. Even when he was keeping something from me, even when I could feel the edges of something he wasn’t saying, I never once doubted that.
He dropped his hand and we continued upstairs without another word. I was asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow, his arm a steady weight around my waist and the rhythm of his breathing evening out slowly beside me.
Whatever was in those trees tonight, Blake would deal with it. That was what I told myself as sleep pulled me under. What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t have known lying there in the dark, was that by the time Saturday came around, the baby shower was going to be the least of anyone’s concerns.