The sting of sleep's claws had reopened on Selena as she awoke to the feel of smooth cashmere draped over her body like a warm prison, and for a disorienting moment, she was just a woman who had fallen asleep on a sofa. Then, the memories of the last two days crashed down on her with the force of a physical blow. The claw marks, the confession, the ancient journals. She was in Damien Voss's penthouse. She was in a monster's lair. She pushed herself up, her neck stiff, her mind foggy. The journals were neatly stacked on the glass table, her own notebook resting on top. The blanket pooled in her lap-a gesture of care so simple and human that it felt deeply incongruous with the man who had ordered it. The ruthless CEO, the savage beast, the thoughtful caretaker. It was almost like trying to reconcile three completely different people inhabiting one body, and the contradiction was giving her whiplash. The scent of fresh coffee pulled her from her thoughts. There found Damien standing by the vast window, holding a mug, staring down at the waking city. He had dressed once again simply in a dark t-shirt and pants. But this time, he almost seem to resemble a king surveying the kingdom about to lose his court rather than a prisoner to his fate. There was a new tension in his shoulders, a grim, haunted look in his eyes that was deeper than mere exhaustion. It was the look of a man who had seen in the next page of a horror story and was dreading to turn it.
"And here I thought you would be fine and sickness in bed," she said, not so sweetly but with a raspy voice. He turned, his gaze sweeping over her, and for a second, she felt an intense, possessive scrutiny that made her skin prickle. Then it was gone, replaced by a guarded neutrality. "There's coffee," he said, nodding toward a high-end machine that had already brewed a full pot. "I wasn't sure how you took it." "Black is fine," she said, pouring herself a cup. Simple sharing over a pot felt a bit too much real, laid down with fragile domesticity against an epic backdrop of supernatural war. They stood in silence for a moment, two strangers bound by an impossible secret, the quiet hum of the city far below the only sound. Selena, however, had never been good at standing still. Her mind was already racing, connecting the dots from the night before. "Corvin," she said, breaking the silence. "The Lycaeum. That's our next move. If your father's journals are right, this man is an archivist of your… kind. He's the key. We have to find him." Damien's jaw tightened. He turned from the window to face her, and his expression hardened. "No."
The flat denial stood right before her. "No? What do you mean, no? Damien, this is the only lead we have. Hiding here and reading old books isn't a strategy." "Hiding here is the only thing keeping you safe," he countered, his voice low and intense. "Leaving this building means exposing you. We don't know who this Corvin is, or if he's even still alive. We don't know whose side he's on. Walking into a place called the 'Lycaeum' sounds like a great way to announce our presence to every clan on the continent." Selena felt the surge of frustration. "So what's your plan? To keep me locked in this gilded cage forever? I am not a fragile doll, Damien. I am a partner. And a partner doesn't sit on the sidelines. The only way to win a fight is to get ahead of your enemy, and that means taking risks." The conflict was clear in his eyes-the cold logic that justified her position, and the raw, primal instinct that wanted to wrap her in steel and never let her out of his sight. Man versus beast, and she was standing squarely in the middle.
You've got it, he finally admitted, words tasting like ash in his mouth. "Hiding is just a slower way to die." He ran a hand through his hair-a gesture of profound weariness. "We do it my way, carefully. I'll use my resources, my real-world resources. We'll search for any mention of a 'Lycaeum' in obscure historical texts, private auction records, deeds for properties owned by trusts with strange names. We'll look for Corvin, not as a werewolf, but as a man: historian, collector. We find his footprint before we go looking for his physical one." It was a sound plan, perfect fusion of her investigative drive and his immense capabilities: the plan of a team. They began to set up their laptops on the great table to work, and the charged energy of the previous night returned to them, although now it had strengthened into something different: no longer merely the tension of a secret shared, but the blossoming trust in a real alliance. At one point, he leaned over her shoulder to look at her screen, and she was enveloped in his scent-sandalwood and that wild, storm-like essence that was purely him. The pull was so strong she felt dizzy, her fingers momentarily freezing on the keyboard. He seemed to feel it too. He lingered for just a moment too long, his breath warm near her ear. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, the immense, coiled power held in careful check. He straightened abruptly, putting distance between them, his expression guarded once more. "There are costs to this, Selena," he said, his voice a low warning. "Dangers you don't even know about yet. Things I've read. You have to trust me to protect you." Dark promise, hint of a new secret he was already keeping. She looked at him, at the terrible knowledge in his eyes, and knew the truth she uncovered was just a first skin. More monsters hid in the dark, and some of them, she was beginning to realize, were far more terrifying than the beast he became under the moon