Chapter Five

It happened fast.

One second Elias was standing at the bar. The next his hand came down hard on the counter and he turned to face her with something in his eyes that was not the usual nothing.

"Mate."

The word came out low. Rough. Like it surprised him.

Liora went very still.

"Tell me." His voice was controlled but tight around the edges. "What did you do to me?"

"I didn't—"

"My heart is racing." He took one step closer. "Throat dry. Body burning up." His eyes searched her face. "What was in that glass?"

"It's not—"

"Did you poison me?"

"No!"

"Then what—"

"You feel something!" The words came out before she could stop them. Liora snapped her mouth shut. Then opened it again. "You do. You feel something for me. That's why it's working."

Elias stared at her.

"Answer me," he said quietly. "What was in it."

Liora straightened. "No poison. I promise. Just a fun potion mixed with a little alcohol. That's all."

"That's all."

"It only amplifies emotions and sensations that are already there." She held his gaze. "Fifteen seconds. That's it. That's why it's called a Love Potion. Whatever you just felt — it was already inside you. I just turned up the volume for a moment."

The fifteen seconds, apparently, were up. Because Elias blinked. Something settled back behind his eyes. The walls came back up, smooth and fast, like they'd never come down at all.

He turned and walked away.

"Hey." Liora followed. "Hey! You don't get to just walk away from me."

He kept walking.

"Elias."

He stopped. But he didn't turn around.

"What do you actually want from me?" he asked. His back was still to her. His voice was back to flat, back to dry, back to giving nothing. "Be honest."

Liora opened her mouth. Closed it.

Then — because Freya was fading and her father's debt was real and she was running out of time and options and she was so, so tired of pretending otherwise — she said it.

"I fell for you at first sight."

Silence.

Elias turned around slowly.

"I feel nothing for you, Miss Fenrirson," he said.

The way he said her name told her he'd known exactly who she was this whole time.

"I don't believe you," Liora said.

"That's not my problem."

"Wait — wait, wait." She stepped in front of him before he could move again. "I'm serious about you. I am. And I—" She reached into her small bag with slightly shaking hands and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "I even prepared something."

Elias looked at the paper. Then at her. "You prepared something."

"A love poem. Just — listen. One minute."

He said nothing. Which she decided to count as permission.

She unfolded the paper. Cleared her throat.

"Love is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken." She glanced up at him, then back down. "Love is the fullness of life, like a goblet brimming with wine." She lowered the paper. Met his eyes. "You already drank my love. Can you really say no to me?"

A long pause.

"Those aren't your words," Elias said.

Liora blinked. "What?"

"The first part. That's Shakespeare."

Her mouth opened. Then closed.

"Sonnet 116," he added, almost bored.

"I — yes. Okay. Fine. But the second part was mine."

"The goblet line."

"Yes."

"It wasn't very good."

Liora stared at him.

"Even Shakespeare," she said finally, with as much dignity as she had left, which was not much, "would bless us."

Something passed across Elias's face. So fast she almost missed it. Not quite a smile. Not quite not a smile.

"Goodnight, Miss Fenrirson," he said.

And this time when he walked away, she let him go.

She stood in the middle of the quiet dinner party holding her crumpled love poem and listened to Freya laughing weakly somewhere inside her chest.

The goblet line wasn't very good,Freya agreed.

"Shut up, Freya."

I'm just saying.

"I know what you're saying."

Shakespeare, Liora. You quoted Shakespeare at the most powerful Alpha in the North.

"I said shut up."

But even as she said it, she was thinking about the way his walls had cracked. Just for fifteen seconds. Just enough.

It was a start.

The cramp hit her right outside the main hall.

Liora doubled over, one hand on the wall, teeth clenched. Her stomach felt like something was wringing it out from the inside.

That's what happens, Freya said weakly, when you skip dinner to make a man a cocktail.

"I'm aware, Freya."

Just noting it.

"Noted."

She straightened slowly. The warmth she got from being near Elias had already started to fade, bleeding out of her like heat from an open window. Her legs felt heavy. Her vision was doing that thing at the edges — blurring slightly, like a photograph left in the sun too long.

She needed a recharge. Now.

She found him in the corridor outside the main room, jacket on, clearly leaving. She pushed off the wall and moved toward him.

"Hey." Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "I skipped dinner just to make you that drink." She managed a weak smile. "Can I at least get a hug?"

Elias looked at her. "If you need help, call your manager."

"Heartless bastard," she muttered.

"I heard that."

"You were meant to."

He turned and kept walking. Liora watched him go and thought, not for the first time, that the universe had a very specific and personal grudge against her.

I guess we're on our own, Freya whispered.

"We're always on our own."

She started walking. Slowly. One hand still trailing the wall. If she could just get outside, get some air, maybe sit down for a minute—

What the hell.

She walked straight into something solid. Her hands shot out on instinct and grabbed the nearest thing available to stop herself from falling.

Which happened to be Elias.

Who had, for reasons she could not explain, stopped walking and turned back around.

Her hands were fisted in the front of his jacket. Her forehead was approximately an inch from his chest. And she could feel it immediately — that warmth, rushing back in like sunlight through a cracked door. Steady. Real. Freya surging back to life inside her like someone had flipped a switch.

"Can you make your seduction tactics any less obvious?" His voice came from somewhere above her head.

"This is not on purpose." She did not let go. "It's an accident. A total accident."

"You're still holding my jacket."

"I'm aware."

Liora, Freya breathed. Keep it there. I feel so powerful right now.

So Liora kept it there.

The warmth kept coming. Slow and deep, filling up all the empty cold places. She could feel her legs steadying under her. Her vision clearing. Freya stretching out inside her like a cat in a patch of sun, strong and content and very much alive.

It worked, Freya whispered, delighted. He actually recharged us.

Oh thank God.

I love him.

Freya—

He's my power bank and I love him.

"Okay," Liora murmured. "One more second. Just one more—"

"What are you doing?" His voice had dropped. Lower now. Less flat, more careful. Like he was trying to figure out what exactly was happening and why he hadn't moved away yet. "Let go."

"Just one more sec. Please."

A pause.

He didn't move.

And then — a door opened.

Liora heard it before she registered anything else. The click of a handle, the soft swing of expensive hinges, and then a voice that turned her blood to ice water.

"Dad?"

She knew that voice.

She let go of Elias's jacket and took one step back and looked up.

Elowen Duskfangor stood in the doorway.Perfectly put together in a way that always made Liora feel like a rough draft standing next to a final copy.

Elowen's eyes went to her father first. Then to Liora. And the recognition that moved across her face was slow and awful, like a storm rolling in from the distance.

"What is wrong with you?" She was talking to her father but her eyes hadn't left Liora. "I am not having this woman as my stepmother."

Elias frowned. "Elowen—"

"Stepmother?" Liora said.

The word came out before she could catch it. She looked at Elowen. Elowen looked at her. Behind Elowen, half-hidden by the doorframe, was another figure.

Leoric..... Of course it was Leoric.

Liora stood very still in the corridor between her ex-mate and his new girlfriend and his new girlfriend's father, and thought that the universe didn't just have a grudge against her..

It had a whole plan.