Chapter 9 009

Chapter 9 009


Dominic's POV

I don't sleep.

Not really. An hour, two if I'm lucky, and then my brain decides it's done and I'm awake staring at the ceiling doing nothing useful. I've had this my whole life. Stopped fighting it somewhere around fifteen.

I was at the desk by four going through border reports. The words stopped making sense after the third page so I put them down and just sat there in the dark for a while.

Through the wall I could hear her breathing.

I didn't think about it. I got dressed and left.



The pack is easier before everyone's up. Less of everything — less noise, less people waiting for me to say something, less of that specific weight that comes with being looked at all day by people who need things from you. Just the work. The wall circuit, the gate check, the training ground. I corrected two of the younger soldiers and kept moving.

This is the part I know how to do.

By midmorning my father had sent for me.

He was sitting up when I came in. Looked like it was costing him. He'd been getting worse in small increments every day, small enough that you could almost not notice, and then you'd look at him directly and notice all at once.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

He looked at me the way he always has. Like an inventory. Like he's running down a list checking things off. I used to brace for that look. Now it just lands and I let it.

"The girl," he said.

"Zelyne."

He moved past that. "Your mother says she's been going out alone."

"She's allowed out."

"Within reason."

"She's not locked up." I heard the edge in my own voice. Didn't pull it back.

Father looked at me for a moment. "No," he said. "She isn't."

He coughed. The bad kind, the kind that takes a while to pass, and I sat there and watched him get through it because there was nothing else to do.

"Your mother chose her for reasons," he said when he could. "You know that."

"You've said."

"Then behave like you know it." He settled back. "She needs to feel like she belongs here. That comes from you. That's always going to come from you whether you want it to or not."

I didn't answer.

"You're going to be a good Alpha," he said. Not kind. Just true, the way he says true things — flat, no warmth around it. "You've always had everything you need for that." He closed his eyes. "The other parts. The ones that actually matter. I don't know. I've been trying to figure out how to give you those for twenty years and I still don't know."

I stood up. "Get some rest."

He was already mostly gone.

\---

I found her in the garden.

Or she was already there and I walked into it, which is different. I never go there expecting anyone. The whole point of it is that nobody goes there.

She was on the bench with her eyes closed and her hands flat on her thighs, very still, not asleep — something else. Like she was listening for something.

I should have turned around.

I said stay instead. Sat at the far end of the bench and looked at the garden and said nothing. She said nothing either. And it was — fine. Just quiet. The same quiet I come here for, except there was someone in it, and somehow that didn't wreck it the way I expected it to.

I didn't know what to do with that so I left before I had to figure it out.

\---

Kael came to find me an hour later.

He knocked and walked in without waiting, same as always, and sat down across from me with his hands in his pockets doing that thing where he has something to say and is deciding how much of it to actually say.

I waited.

"How's Father," he said.

"Same."

"Lecture you?"

"Talked. I listened."

He nodded. Picked up a small stone from the edge of the desk and started turning it over in his fingers. "She's handling it well," he said. Casual. "Zelyne. Given everything."

I looked at him.

He kept his eyes on the stone.

"Kael."

"What."

I didn't say anything else. Just let the silence do it. He kept turning the stone, jaw slightly tight, not looking at me, and I watched him not look at me and I knew. I already knew before he came in, if I'm being honest. I'd known for a few days in the particular way you know things you'd rather not.

He put the stone down.

"I'm just saying she's not what I expected," he said. "That's it. That's all I'm saying."

"I know what you're saying."

"Then you know I'm not saying anything else."

I held on him. He looked back, and whatever he was trying to keep off his face almost worked. Almost.

"She's my wife," I said.

"I know."

"Do you."

The room went quiet in a way that had weight in it. Something moved through his expression that he pressed down before it finished arriving.

He stood up. "I'll see you at dinner."

Left.

I sat there after he'd gone and looked at the desk and didn't pick up the reports for a while.

My father's voice in my head. The parts that actually matter.

My brother not looking at me.

I picked up the reports.

Found the same page I'd already read twice and read it again.