Yahotgirl 的作品

"Close to what," I whispered. "Close to finding me. Close to catching her. What does it mean.""It means whoever's leaving these messages wants us afraid," Lucien said, his voice tight with barely controlled fury. "It means they're telling us we're running out of room."Marcus was already moving through the office, checking behind the desk, under the overturned chair, scanning for anything that might tell us where Corinne had actually gone."No blood," he said, quiet relief threading through the observation. "Whatever happened here, it wasn't violent enough to leave a mark on the floor.""That doesn't mean she's safe," I said."No," Marcus agreed. "It means whoever took her wanted her intact. Which tells us something.""What," Lucien said."They need something from her," Marcus said. "Information, most likely. If they only wanted her silenced, this room would look very different right now."Damien crouched near the window, examining the latch carefully. "This was forced from outside.

"What does that mean."? Victoria's voice cracked beside me, her eyes fixed on Caleb with a fear I hadn't seen from her before, not even the night he'd slapped her in front of the entire hall."What does he already know," she said, louder this time, turning toward her husband. "Caleb. What is Damien supposed to know."Caleb's jaw tightened, his composure slipping for just a fraction of a second before he smoothed it back into place. "Nothing that concerns you tonight.""It's clearly something that concerns you enough to be shouting about it in front of every guest we invited.""Victoria." His voice dropped into a warning she recognized instantly, and I watched her flinch, the way a person flinches from a sound they've learned to fear through repetition.Lucien's hand found the small of my back again, steering me subtly away from the center of the commotion, toward the edge of the crowd where we could watch without being watched ourselves."He ran," Lucien murmured, low enough only I co

"He's looking straight at us." Marcus's voice was barely a breath, but the urgency in it was unmistakable.Caleb held his glass raised, his gaze fixed on the archway, and for one endless second nobody in the corridor moved at all.Then someone near him leaned in to speak, and his attention broke, sliding away toward whoever had interrupted the toast.The four of us exhaled almost in unison."That's our window," Lucien said. "We separate now, before he finishes his glass and starts looking again.""Damien," I said quickly, before he could turn away. "If he asks you anything tonight, what do you tell him.""The truth I've already given him for six months," Damien said. "That I saw nothing tonight worth reporting. It's thin. It won't hold forever.""How long," Lucien asked."Days. Maybe less, if anyone else in that room noticed my reaction the way I noticed hers." Damien's jaw was tight. "I need to get back inside before my absence becomes its own kind of evidence."He disappeared throug

"Yours."? The word barely left my mouth before the room seemed to tilt around me."Not Victoria's father," I whispered. "Mine."Damien's expression held something raw, grief layered over decades of silence. "I loved your mother before either of us ever married anyone else. Before Alaric destroyed everything between our families and forced us apart.""That's not possible." My voice shook despite every effort to hold it steady. "My father raised me. I have his eyes in every photograph from my childhood, his laugh, his-""You have your mother's eyes," Damien said quietly. "The man who raised you loved you enough to never once let you doubt it. That doesn't make the blood between us any less true."Across the room, Caleb's laughter rang out at something an elder had said, and the sound of it snapped me back to the danger still surrounding us."We can't do this here," I whispered."I know." Damien's jaw tightened. "There's a service corridor behind the east archway. Five minutes. Both of y

"There's a way to know for certain, right now, tonight."Corinne stood in the doorway of the small study Lucien had led us into, a slim folder in her hands, her expression unreadable."What way," Lucien said."Blood." She set the folder down on the desk between us. "When Elena was admitted, we ran a full panel before the surgery began, standard protocol for any patient undergoing reconstruction that invasive. If Damien's blood is anywhere in a pack registry, even under an assumed identity, a direct comparison would tell us within hours whether the resemblance Marcus's contact noticed is coincidence or something else.""He's not in any registry," Marcus said. "Not under any name I've found so far.""Then we need a sample directly," Corinne said. "Something he's touched. A cup. A blade. Anything with enough material on it to run against Elena's panel.""That means getting close enough to him tomorrow to take something without him noticing," I said slowly."Yes.""I already planned to ge

"Meeting with Caleb."The words landed heavy, and for a moment none of us spoke."Are you certain," Lucien said. "Certain enough to act on it.""Two separate contacts, two separate nights," Marcus said. "Both described the same thing. Damien slipping out of the household after midnight, meeting Caleb somewhere off the estate grounds, returning before dawn like nothing happened.""Then he's not simply watching Victoria from a distance," I said slowly. "He's working directly with the man who married her.""Or Caleb suspects something about him and is keeping him close to control the risk," Lucien said. "Either version is possible. We don't know which yet."Marcus shook his head. "There's a third possibility neither of you has considered.""What," I asked."That Damien isn't watching Victoria out of fatherly obligation at all," Marcus said. "That the story Alaric gave us, a man desperate to see the daughter he was never allowed to claim, was only ever half true. Maybe he found his way in