Chapter 9 - Keira

“This is ridiculous, and it needs to stop,” Aris says.

He’s not my alpha, but he shocks me into silence. A chill shoots up my spine—my stomach seems to swoop up into my throat, then back down.

Beside me, silent on the other side of the couch, Ado is unmoving. I wonder how long he and Aris have known each other. Is this the first time Aris has ever had to chew him out?

I open my mouth to speak but can’t. Nothing comes to my lips, so I close them again.

“You two are the primary operatives on this mission,” Aris continues. His every word is slow and sure. “You were chosen because you’re good at what you do, and because it’s an important mission, and lives are at stake. But if you refuse to work together, both of you will be forced to let others take over. It’s not good for you, the mission, or the pack.”

I watch him as he speaks, trying to reconcile the man standing in front of me with the Aris I used to know. He’s different now. More settled. There’s an authority in his tone, in the way he carries himself, that wasn’t there before. He trusts himself completely, and that makes this all the more painful. He’s not speaking out of frustration; he’s speaking out of necessity.

Half a mile upriver, the raid on the warehouse at Hognose Creek is in two days.

Aris takes a step forward, his gaze shifting between Ado and me. “I know something is going on between the two of you. I was there too—so were the others—we remember what happened. We didn’t forget. But I do need to know that you can set it aside. Because if you can’t, you’re putting this mission and everyone else at risk.”

I force myself to meet his eyes, but the force of his words makes it hard to breathe. He’s right. Of course, he’s right. Of course, he remembers. Did he need much convincing by Ado to leave me behind? Maybe he hadn’t yet learned how to lead. Maybe that was why he agreed to let me stay there, in that place, in the hovel where they left me to—

Aris doesn’t give us time to respond. He turns toward the door, then stops with his hand on the handle.

“Neither of you is leaving this room until you start talking,” he says firmly. “Not about the mission. About this. Whatever it is that’s between you two, you need to address it. If you can’t, I’ll have to pull you both off the mission, and I’ll send Keira back to New York. The stakes are too high to let this continue.”

With that, he opens the door and walks out, leaving Ado and me alone in the meeting room on either end of the leather couch. The door clicks shut behind him, and the quiet that follows is deathly. I feel trapped, lightheaded, like the air has been sucked from the room.

For a long moment, neither of us moves. I keep my eyes fixed on a spot on the floor, listening to the ticking of the sleek black clock on the wall. My pulse is loud in my ears. I sense Ado beside me, still as a stone, his presence like a heavy weight pressing down between my shoulders.

I want to say something. I want to break the silence, to get it over with. But the words are jumbled in my head, and I don’t know where to start. Everything between us—the history, the unresolved emotions, the things we can’t say—feels like too much to comb out all at once.

I bite my lip, trying to stop the sudden rush of anger in my chest. Who does he think he is? What does he think I owe him?

“We’re supposed to work together. Work together?” I echo myself, my voice harder than I intended. “No. Not when you can’t even look at me, Ado.”

He flinches, just barely, but I catch it. His jaw tightens, and for a second, I think he’s going to say something in return, something to push back. But instead, he lets out a long breath and looks away, his eyes distant.

“It’s not that simple,” he mutters, almost to himself.

“Isn’t it?” I snap, the frustration bubbling over. “We’re supposed to be professionals. But every time we’re in the same room, it’s like there’s a wall between us, affecting everything, and I know you feel it. I see the way you look at me. The others can see it. Aris can see it. Hell, I’m surprised they haven’t pulled us off the mission already.”

His silence is louder than any response he could’ve given me. I close my eyes, trying to steady my breathing and push back the flood of emotions threatening to overwhelm me.

But then, in the quiet, I hear him speak again, so quietly that I almost miss it.

“I know.”

I open my eyes, startled by the softness in his tone. When I look at him, there’s something different in his expression. A vulnerability that I’ve rarely seen. He meets my gaze, and we look at each other for the first time in what feels like forever.

The silence between us lingers, but there’s a shift in it now—something fragile, like a bridge just starting to form. Ado meets my eyes, and I see years of our lives stretch thin as a wire in his eyes. He feels all the time that we missed.

I take a breath and try to hold it in my lungs. There it is, the icy water, lunging up toward me. One of these days, I’m going to hit the surface of it.

“Ado,” I say softly, “We can’t keep going like this. If we don’t start talking, we’re going to get someone hurt. And I can’t live with that. I just can’t.”

I hear my own voice crack. I really can’t, I realize; I cannot live with that. It would destroy me. It was one thing when the losses reached me behind my desk in New York. Now, I’m up close and personal with them.

Ado nods, his gaze dropping to the floor before he looks back at me. His eyes are so dark that they’re nearly black. But when they catch in the sunlight just so—just like that—I see every detail of them reveal itself to me in the glow.

“I know,” he says quietly. “I’ve been thinking about that, too. I don’t take assignments like this. Not until now.”

I wonder whether he thought of me when he first got this case. That prospect is almost unbearable.

It makes sense that this isn’t familiar for Ado. It’s not a job for the faint of heart. In this line of work, it’s impossible to ever stop thinking about them—the people we’re supposed to protect. These victims need us to come down hard on this network and take it off the map for good. If we fail, it’s not just our mission that crumbles. Innocent people pay the price.

“I’ve been worried, too,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper. “This isn’t just another mission, not for me. I’ve been—” A bitter laugh splits through my voice, harried and unhappy. “I’ve been behind a desk for years. I don’t do this kind of work anymore. Not since…”

My words trail off. I can’t say anymore. I could try, but I know I’d fail to utter a single word more about what happened, not in front of him. I’ve never told anyone about my experiences with the Bloodtooths after I was left behind. More than anyone else, I know I could not tell Ado even if I wanted to. My throat burns—my face burns. My whole body burns. I am on fire, and he is beside me, still as stone.

No one would notice, but I do. I see how Ado doesn’t twitch or even seem to breathe. His hands are so still in his lap, the kind of still that makes you realize how twitchy and unsteady hands usually are.

I have rattled him.

“I’ve been behind a desk,” I repeat weakly. “So, this is all new all over again, and I can’t mess it up. I just can’t.”

Ado hesitates. His jaw works, the first sign of movement since I spoke. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you. But I didn’t want to make things worse.”

His words surprise me. I hadn’t considered that maybe he was holding back because he was trying to protect me—I had especially failed to consider that he would ever admit that to me. It had occurred to me that maybe he was struggling with this as much as I was, but it had seemed like wishful thinking. When it comes to Ado, most of my thinking is wishful.

“I thought you were just… avoiding me,” I say, feeling the hot ball of frustration I’ve been carrying spitting in my gut. “And you were. I know that. I was avoiding you, too. It’s only fair. I thought maybe we could make that work.”

He leans forward and runs a hand through his hair. If Ado were a different type of man, he’d be huffing frustratedly, but he is silent, as I knew he would be.

Neither of us speaks for some time. A bird streaks through the clear blue sky outside the window, soaring up toward the spotty white clouds that capture and hold the sunlight high above the pack center.

Ado straightens. He looks through the glass out over Rosecreek rather than at me as he says, slowly and quietly, “I thought about you all the time when you were gone.”

I am drowning. I am the banks of Halfmoon Lake, eroding backward from a powerful tide. For a sheer, singular moment, I am the woman I used to be, watching the man I love lead me through the dark. I am waking up alone, and he’s gone.

Then, I’m back on the couch in the Rosecreek pack center. I’m myself again, watching him as he watches the sky.

Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. We both understand that something fundamental has been broken, some unspoken pact not to acknowledge what happened.

I stand, the movement sudden and stiff, breaking the quiet. Ado doesn’t look at me, but I sense his attention shifting. My wolf wants him so badly that I can hardly stand it. My breath catches in my throat, and I force myself to speak.

“I… need some air,” I say, my voice thin and shaky.

In my words is a plea—to him, to myself, to whatever it is that still lingers between us.

Ado nods once, still staring out at the sky.

I turn and head for the door, my steps quick and uneven, desperate to escape that room. I grip the cold metal handle and hesitate for just a second, glancing back at Ado one last time.

But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything more. So, I leave.

I have something I need to ask Aris.