by Zoe Chant
She looked up, trying to gauge what Malachi thought. She knew he hated Victor, that he was happy to see him in jail, but a lot of shifters had a very visceral reaction to the idea of betraying the pack. Elizabeth had been one of them, at first.
But he didn’t look disgusted, or disapproving, or anything like that. He looked—he looked like he was in pain.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
His eyes went wide, and then he laughed disbelievingly. “Am I okay? Elizabeth, you—” He shook his head. “Please keep telling the story. If you’re comfortable talking about it.”
She was not comfortable talking about it. But she wanted to tell it, to tell everything to someone. She hadn’t told the whole story to anyone at all.
“I’d heard N—one of Victor’s enforcers say something that suggested that Michael’s death wasn’t an accident. So I started looking into it. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I found any evidence. I was frankly hoping I wouldn’t find anything.
“But I did. I found out that Michael had been planning to leave the pack, which Victor hadn’t told anyone, and that Victor had asked to meet him somewhere isolated. It hadn’t just been a car accident during a normal workday like he’d said.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “And I was feeling so sick all the time, and I thought it was just stress, and then I realized that I’d missed my period. And so I took a test. And I realized that everything was more serious than I’d thought it could possibly be.”
“I’m sorry you had to be alone for that,” Malachi said quietly.
“I didn’t want anyone else there,” Elizabeth said, which was—well, it was the truth, wasn’t it? At least—”There wasn’t anyone in my life who would’ve helped.”
“Then I’m sorry that there wasn’t anyone,” Malachi said. “I hope that now—” He stopped.
Elizabeth blinked.
“I hope that that changes for you,” he said in a rush. “Now that you’re out of that pack for good.”
Oh. She’d thought he might be about to say something else. “I hope so, too.” She took a deep breath. “Anyway, realizing that I was pregnant—that I was going to bring a baby into this world, the world I was living in where I couldn’t trust anyone—” She shook her head. “I knew that I couldn’t let that happen. And I couldn’t just leave town, not when I’d already seen what Victor had done to Michael when he wanted to leave. Besides—I didn’t want to abandon everyone else to live under Victor’s rule like that. Not when I had the abilities and the information to bring him down.”
Inside her, her lioness stirred again.
Elizabeth braced herself. Every time she’d thought about taking Victor down, her lioness had roared in protest. Betraying the pack was the worst thing a lion could do.
But this time was different.
We protected our cub, her lioness thought with a triumphant growl. Fought our enemies! Now, food and safety.
It was an entirely new sensation. A predatory joy, a sense of true victory that had been missing amid all of the fear and the sadness.
She clenched her fists, letting her lioness rise in her chest, and reveling in the connection she’d missed so badly. “I did it,” she said aloud, and looked up at Malachi. “I haven’t really—I’ve been feeling so terrible, so tired all the time, and Nevin found me right after I had my last meeting with the DA—”
“What?” Malachi asked, frowning.
“Oh.” She hadn’t actually mentioned to anyone what had finally driven her out of the city, looking for refuge in Oak Ridge. “Um. Nevin, you spoke to him on the phone?”
“I remember.” His voice sounded implacable.
“He figured out what I’d done, and he was waiting for me when I came out of the DA’s office. I thought he might—but he didn’t, and I ran, and I got to my car, and it was fine.” The words were coming out in a jumble, and Malachi’s face was getting darker and darker as she spoke.
“Anyway,” she rushed forward, “I was fine, but I was a little—shaken up, and I haven’t really gotten the chance to think about how I—I won.”
Malachi got his expression under control with what looked like a fair amount of effort. Elizabeth watched a little nervously, not sure how she felt about this. On the one hand, she didn’t want anyone getting so angry on her behalf.
On the other hand...maybe it was kind of nice to have someone so angry on her behalf?
She tucked that thought away hastily. Maybe she could take it out and look at it later. In private.
Malachi summoned a smile, and reached across the table, taking her hand in a warm grip. “You did win. And you should be so proud of yourself, Elizabeth, because the way you stuck with it for so long, through all that danger...it’s a hell of a thing that you did.” He smiled a little. “And I’m sure Victor never imagined he could be beaten by a woman.”
“No, no way. He’s sexist down to the bone.” Elizabeth squeezed Malachi’s hand back, feeling a warm glow of satisfaction and triumph. Inside her, her lioness purred.
“Soup dumplings,” announced the waiter, and Elizabeth snatched her hand back. “And the braised rabbit.” The waiter set Malachi’s dish in front of him.
Elizabeth looked down at her plate, surprised. There wasn’t any soup in sight.
“Lachlan recommends putting the dumpling in the spoon and puncturing it, at least for the first one,” the waiter recommended.
The dish had come with the Chinese-restaurant-style deep white soup spoons. “Thanks,” Elizabeth said, and proceeded to try it.
There were also chopsticks, so she got one of the dumplings in the spoon, stabbed it with a chopstick, and—”Oh!” she said, laughing. “There’s soup inside the dumpling.”
And in fact, there was. The spoon was slowly filling with the broth that had been contained inside the little dumpling package.
“Never seen that before,” said Malachi, cocking his head. “Is it good?”
“Let’s see.” Elizabeth managed to fit the whole thing in her mouth, broth and all—although she regretted it a second later, because it was extremely hot.
Still, it exploded with flavor in her mouth—ginger and garlic and sesame, savory and delicious, the soft dough and the hot broth coming together to make her eyes roll back in her head with pleasure.
“Whoo,” she said after a second, laughing and fanning her mouth. “That’s fantastic. But I’m going to wait a little longer for the next one to cool. How’s your rabbit?”
“Want to try it?” Malachi pushed his plate forward.
Elizabeth hesitated, but oh, she really did want to try it. It looked amazing—tender meat on a bed of greens with some kind of creamy grain—polenta?—on the side.
She snagged a little bite with a bit of everything on her fork, and put it in her mouth. “Oh, wow,” she said. The meat almost melted in her mouth, the polenta rich and creamy and tangy with—some kind of cheese? “That’s amazing.” She looked back and forth between their plates. “I don’t regret the dumplings, but now I kind of wish I had both.”
She regretted the words the second they came out of her mouth—listening to herself, she realized how greedy she sounded.
But Malachi just laughed. “We can order you the rabbit, too. Or if you’re full after the dumplings, we can come back tonight.”
“I suppose we can,” Elizabeth said slowly.
She should object, she knew. Or say that she was definitely going to be paying for lunch, and dinner, and any future dinners, as a thank you for being allowed to stay rent-free in Malachi’s home for some unknown period of time.
But she couldn’t afford to pay for a ton of dinners out for two right now. Maybe she could just pay for herself.
Yes, that was a good idea. She’d insist on paying for her own lunch, at least, and then Malachi would know that she wasn’t some kind of freeloader.
She set upon her dumplings with renewed appetite. They were just as amazing as the first one, garlicky and just a bit spicy, and somehow the
inclusion of broth made them more delicious than any dumplings she’d ever had before.
She’d finished them off before she realized—and she was still a bit hungry. Oops.
Malachi was making his way through the rabbit, but he set his fork down a minute or two after Elizabeth finished. “You know, this is pretty rich,” he said. “I don’t think I can finish it off myself. Help me out?”
He pushed his plate forward. Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “This is subterfuge.”
Malachi held his serious expression for a long minute of eye contact, and then it broke and he grinned. “Maybe. But I’m not going to eat it whether I’m full or not, so you might as well put it to some use.”
Elizabeth supposed she couldn’t argue with that, and tugged his plate over to her side of the table.
God, it was all so delicious. Meltingly tender rabbit—she’d never had rabbit before—crisp greens, silky polenta—she wanted to keep eating it forever.
Food. How had she managed to forget how amazing it was?
The rabbit vanished quickly, and Elizabeth sighed in happiness, finally feeling satiated.
Are you happy in there, baby? she thought. Did you get enough food to keep you nourished and growing?
She imagined she could feel the baby’s heart beating inside her, its tiny presence as it grew and grew. Cub, her lioness thought with satisfaction.
Elizabeth let out a contented breath, and looked at Malachi.
Who was looking at her with a serious expression. A real one this time, not one hiding a smile, although Elizabeth didn’t know when she’d learned to tell the difference.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I saw something last night, and I need to ask you about it,” Malachi said.
Elizabeth felt herself drawing up, setting the relaxation and contentment aside. Maybe she’d be able to find it later, but this wasn’t the place for it any longer. “Ask me.”
“It was a red dragon,” Malachi said, and Elizabeth’s whole body tensed up.
“Oh,” she said, almost soundlessly.
“I’d never seen it before—him, I think, unless their gender markings are different from ours. He was flying over the forests just outside of town. When I flew towards him, he turned and left. So I don’t know anything about him; he might not even have been hostile.”
“But probably he was,” Elizabeth said with a sinking heart.
Malachi lifted a hand. “You yourself told us that Victor was looking to form an alliance with a clan of red dragons. Do you know if that alliance was formalized in any way?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “It wasn’t. There was a—concern, on the part of the dragons, that Victor’s methods were somehow dishonorable, from their perspective. And there was a concern, on Victor’s part, of potentially giving up control of the situation to another, more powerful group of shifters. It became pretty clear that inviting the red dragons into our city might’ve been like the fly inviting the spider over for dinner.”
Malachi’s mouth quirked at that. “All right. So the alliance didn’t happen. But there’s still a red dragon poking around our forest.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said, “the reason Victor was even in talks with the dragons in the first place was because they were very interested to hear about Oak Ridge. I got the impression, from the little time I spent with them, that they were surprised to learn that there was a settlement of dragon shifters that they hadn’t already heard about.”
“I see,” Malachi said slowly.
“So...it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they’re just investigating on their own,” Elizabeth finished. She bit her lip. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Malachi said, a hint of sternness in his voice. “You didn’t do anything to bring this about.”
Elizabeth raised her hands. “I opened negotiations with their clan diplomat. So yes, I did.”
“Under Victor’s orders.”
“Well, yes.”
“And what would’ve happened if you’d disobeyed those orders?”
Elizabeth looked away. “Well.”
“See? You didn’t do anything wrong. In point of fact, you did everything you could possibly do right, at great personal risk to yourself. So don’t apologize.”
“All right,” Elizabeth acceded, fighting a smile. “Okay.”
Malachi looked down at the remains of their food, a frown creasing his forehead. “So we have red dragons in town and no real idea what they want. I have to talk to Ronan, and then go on patrol to see if anyone else is poking their noses where they don’t belong. But I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I could come with you,” Elizabeth suggested, trying not to sound too eager. She didn’t really want Malachi to leave her alone either, frankly.
Not because she was afraid to be alone, really. She could probably just go back to the house and take another nap. But she wanted to know what was going on with the dragons just as badly as Malachi did...and she enjoyed his company.
The way he was always thinking about what was best for people, his quiet confidence, his subtle humor, how he was with Hayley...she felt like she could learn a lot about being a good parent, a good person, from him.
Rather than just being a lawyer with an empty apartment, ordering sushi and eating it at her computer.
But he was shaking his head. “I patrol in the air,” he said.
I could ride on your back...?
Where had that thought even come from? Elizabeth wanted to shake her head sharply to get it out again. What an inappropriate suggestion that would be.
“All right,” she said instead. “But you don’t have to worry about leaving me alone. I can just go back to the house—”
“No,” Malachi said firmly. “No, absolutely not. Now that Victor’s pack knows what you’ve done, and after that phone call yesterday? With another potential enemy in the area? No way.”
Elizabeth supposed that when he put it that way, the catalogue of potential danger was pretty long.
And it wasn’t just her in danger now. There was the baby to think of.
“Okay,” she said. “Do you want me to...stay here? Would Lachlan mind if I ordered a zillion cups of—well, not coffee. Herbal tea? All afternoon?”
Elizabeth had actually not given up coffee completely, not that she would mention that to anyone on the street. But she’d been dependent on it for long enough that she’d figured the withdrawal symptoms would’ve been worse for the baby than the caffeine, and apparently a little bit was supposed to be okay. So she had one small cup a day and didn’t tell anyone.
Although she hadn’t had any this morning, and she’d managed to wake up all right. Must have been all of that sleep.
Malachi was shaking his head. “No, Lachlan isn’t going to be on shift for much longer, and I’d rather you were with someone who would know how to protect you. I want Flynn on patrol with me, so...” He dug his phone out of his pocket and started texting.
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “Do I get to know where I’m going to be shuffled off to, or is it a mystery?”
He glanced up, looking a little startled. “Sorry. I wanted to make sure he was available before I told you.” His phone buzzed in his hand, and he glanced at it. “All right—good. If you don’t mind, you can spend the afternoon at Santos’ furniture shop.”
Elizabeth had been gearing up to get in an argument about this, because she truly didn’t appreciate being handed around to different male protectors without getting a say in the matter. But she was brought up short by the last three words.
“I’m sorry?” she said, laughing a little. “A furniture shop?”
Malachi smiled. “Santos is the local carpenter. He has a shop down the street, and he works there most days. If you spent the afternoon there, you’d be safe, and it’s a beautiful place. Plenty to look at, and Santos himself is a really good man. Good person to know.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “Okay,” she said. “All right. But I
want you know that there’s going to come a time when I’m going to say, Malachi, you’re going to spend the day with a person you’ve never met, here you go, and you’re going to have to just nod and smile and deal with it.”
Malachi laughed a little. “I promise to nod and smile and deal with it. But you know this is really just for your safety.”
Elizabeth sobered. “I know,” she said. “And I appreciate that you’re taking care of me.” Whoa, that sounded a little—intimate. She continued hastily. “I know that you’re all grateful for what I did for Victor, but I want you to know that I’m also grateful, for...all of this.” She waved a hand, trying to encompass letting me stay in your home and giving me clothes and shampoo and guarding me from the specters of my previous life in one gesture.
“Well,” Malachi said, “I can’t speak for everyone here, but I can assure you that it is my pleasure.”
His voice was—something. Sincere. More than sincere. The way he said pleasure, like—
Like nothing. He was just being nice. Elizabeth could not afford to get another stupid crush on another goddamn big, strong, handsome, stoic man, not right now.
Even if this particular big, strong, handsome, stoic man was absolutely, hands down, the best example of the type she’d ever met in her life.
***
Santos, it turned out, was another big, strong, handsome, stoic man. Elizabeth was both surprised and relieved to find herself only ordinarily interested in getting to know him. It was much better than being on the verge of swooning, as she seemed to be half the time with Malachi.
“Don’t let me get in your way,” she said, after Malachi had introduced them and taken himself off. Had he lingered a bit on his way out, looking back at her for longer than necessary?
No, you’re imagining things. Don’t be silly.
“I know you have work to do,” she said to Santos, determined to be normal and not like a thirteen-year-old with a crush on a rugged movie star. “So you can just pretend I’m not here.”
It wasn’t like she’d be bored. Even if she weren’t daydreaming about Malachi’s strong jaw and broad shoulders—which she wouldn’t be—the place was full of the most gorgeous furniture she’d ever seen.