Page 26

26

EVE

T he bungalow smelled faintly floral, like lavender had been dried and forgotten in a corner. The walls were lined with weathered wood and afternoon light filtered through a curtain edged in delicate embroidery. It felt so homely, even if there was a gentle layer of dust over everything. A bedroom and a kitchen were off to the side, while the living room was cozy and bright with several windows. A rocking chair in the corner swayed slightly, nudged by a phantom breeze, and a stack of books leaned precariously on the side table next to it. A small sofa, beige and worn with time, was by the fireplace.

Simple, sturdy, a place well-loved. And that alone was a world away from my former abode on Heraclid lands.

“Here.” Isabelle held out a bundle of neatly folded clothes, her smile tentative but genuine. Raina set a few more on the table. “These should fit.”

They were practical pieces made of cotton and canvas, rough and durable. I’d only ever worn long dresses in light fabrics that protected me from wandering eyes. Here was a tunic, a few shirts, leggings—things meant for a life I’d never had.

“Thank you,” I said, the words awkward on my tongue.

She waved it off like it was nothing, though she hesitated, as if looking for a reason to stay. “If you need anything else, let us know,” she said.

“You’re too kind.”

She shrugged. “That’s what a pack does, right? We come together when one of us is in need.”

One of us.

Raina nudged Isabelle and I could tell she thought Isabelle had gone a bit too far. I didn’t blame her.

I looked over the room again—the braided rug beneath my boots, the mismatched dishes stacked neatly on the shelf, the single flower perched in a mason jar on the windowsill. It was too much. Too kind. Too foreign.

“How is this even here?” I asked, the question slipping out. “A furnished house, just waiting for someone to fill it?”

Isabelle hesitated. Raina didn’t say anything, but something passed between the two of them. It wasn’t words. It was a current, a pull that made the air pulse. I couldn’t hear it, not exactly, but I felt it in the way Raina straightened, in the slight tilt of Isabelle’s head—their bond was strong.

It felt like I could almost understand them. It was like listening to a far-off radio muffled by the distance so I couldn’t quite pick out the words.

It reminded me too much of how it used to feel with Kenza and Anwen—how we could understand each other without having to say much. I suddenly really missed Kenza’s frank openness, her playful smile, and Anwen’s constant, grounding presence. An ache crept up before I could shove it back down.

Raina’s voice cut through my thoughts. “This has been a complicated period for our pack,” she said. “You’ll understand more with time.”

Time. My grip tightened around the clothes in my hands, and my fingers were shaking. “Thank you again for these.” I placed them on the round wooden table in the middle of the room and leaned on a chair for balance. My head was swimming and I was worried I’d keel over in front of them.

When my hand gripped the back of the chair, my consciousness was taken over.

It wasn’t the chair under my palm anymore. It was the flash of a different place, a dark clearing shrouded in chaos. Shadows stretched long against the earth, twisting and moving with the violence of an attack.

Thrashing. Blood. Cries.

The chair toppled as I lived in two places at once, the sound of it hitting the ground like a bomb.

My breath caught as the vision snapped away. My heart pounded, and I rubbed my palms on my dress, as though I could wipe the feeling away. It lingered, crawling under my skin.

Raina took my elbow. “Eve? Are you alright?”

“Fine,” I said quickly. “Just felt a little dizzy for a second.”

I picked up the chair and pushed it toward the table, but touching it sucked me back into that dark place. The vision wasn’t done with me.

Logan.

He stood alone, his figure silhouetted against the pale glow of the moon. But he wasn’t proud, commanding, or steady as I’d seen him before. He was crumpled on the ground, his head thrown back, a howl tearing through him that fractured the night itself. Blood matted his fur. Orion wolves fought, their cries of pain echoing through the night. Logan was at the center of it all, fighting with the ferocity of a wolf who had nothing left to lose.

I snatched my hand away from the chair, the bungalow snapping back into focus. What I’d seen wasn’t some wild imagining—it was a piece of something bigger, something real.

I gasped, wrenching myself back to reality.

“You’d better sit down,” Isabelle said, leading me to the small sofa.

I forced a smile that felt paper-thin as I sat down. “It was a difficult trip,” I murmured, but it sounded hollow. “It took more out of me than I thought.”

Raina and Isabelle exchanged a look, their pack bond tangible between them. Even as I sat there, trying to ground myself in the reality of the bungalow, flashes of violence and Logan’s despair continued, haunting the edges of my vision like a storm waiting to break.

Isabelle moved to the window and pulled back the curtain while Raina went into the kitchen. “There’s a garden out back,” Isabelle said lightly. “The previous occupants loved to grow things. There are herbs, vegetables—enough to keep busy.”

I nodded and caught myself smiling at the quaint yard.

Raina returned and handed me a mug, the smell of chamomile rising with the soft curl of steam. “Drink,” she said. “It will help. ”

The warmth of the cup seeped into my fingers as I raised the mug to my lips, but it didn’t reach the cold knot in my stomach. Despite the horrors of the vision, everything about this place felt too good. For the first time in years, no one was barking orders at me, shoving me aside, or demanding something impossible.

And that was harder to trust.

The sound of a low knock on the door broke the quiet. Isabelle’s head shot up, her wide eyes darting to Raina before either of them moved.

“It’s Alpha Logan,” Raina said to me, and tilted her head as another knock came on the door. “You should probably let him in.”

I nodded, and stood, but didn’t move. I was afraid of breaking the fragile spell of peacefulness that had settled around me.

Raina opened the door.

Logan stepped in, filling the small space instantly. He looked at Raina, and she gave him a small nod before gesturing for Isabelle to follow her out.

“We’ll be back later, see how you’re getting along,” Raina said, closing the door behind them.

It was just the two of us for the first time since we reached Orion lands. Logan stood near the door, his arms crossed over his chest, as if unsure of what to say—or maybe just unsure of me.

His gaze dropped to my arms, where faint scratches and bruises from Grayson’s handling of me still marked my skin.

He stepped forward, slower than I would have expected, approaching me like I was breakable.

“Let me see,” he said, his tone soft .

I wanted to protest, to tell him I didn’t need his help, but the words caught in my throat. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or the way he’d looked so tortured in my vision. Or maybe it was the lingering memory of his hands untying the ropes earlier—rough, but not cruel.

Something about the way he was looking at me made it hard to refuse.

I set the mug down and reluctantly held out my arm. His fingers brushed against my skin as he inspected the marks, and I flinched instinctively.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and I felt how sincere he was.

I nodded, letting him continue. His touch was gentle, his calloused hands strangely comforting as he turned my arm to examine the underside.

“My mom used to do this,” he said suddenly, his voice wistful. “When I was a kid. My dad believed in tough love. Said pain was a teacher. She…” He paused, his thumb tracing lightly over a bruise. “She’d sneak me into the kitchen after dark, patch me up and give me a wink.”

His vulnerability caught me off guard. “She sounds… kind,” I said, not knowing any better word for it.

“She was,” he replied with a bittersweet smile. “The pack relied on her leadership as much as they did his. She understood things my dad never did.”

His words stirred something in me, a memory buried deep but not forgotten. “My mother was like that too,” I said, surprising even myself. The words came out hesitant, delicate, like they might break if I said them too loud. “Not quite in the same way, but I know what you mean. ”

Logan glanced at me, his hands stilling before he continued. “Yeah?”

“She used to hum when we were on the move, this lilting melody. We’d be hiding—I didn’t know what from, probably from the whole world—and I would listen. It made me feel safe, even when everything else was falling apart.”

The memory hit me with a wave of longing. I hadn’t spoken about those precious moments we’d had together in so long, hadn’t dared to revisit those days. Now, in this quiet room with Logan’s stability, the words spilled out.

“She taught me how to hide.” I really wished I sounded less meek as I said it. “How to survive. It wasn’t enough. I lost her.”

Logan’s hand moved to a small satchel at his waist, his movements purposeful but unhurried. He pulled out a tin, its metal surface catching the light. When he opened it, the scent hit me—tangy, herbal, with a faint floral undertone. It was soothing. There was a potency beneath it that made my skin prickle.

“This might sting,” he murmured, dipping his fingers into the ointment.

I stiffened as he leaned closer. Before I could protest, he began to spread the balm across one of the shallower scratches on my arm. The sting flared immediately, but I forced myself not to flinch.

“Hold still,” he said.

I wanted to pull away—to tell him I didn’t need his help—but his touch kept me frozen. Every brush sent a rush of heat racing through me. It wasn’t just the sting of the medicine.

It was him .

The sensation was overwhelming, leaving me breathless. My wolf stirred faintly and Logan’s breath hitched ever so slightly, a sound I might have missed if I wasn’t hanging on every moment.

He pulled back abruptly, clearing his throat. “The healer prepared this,” he said, his voice gruffer, his focus shifting to the tin in his hands. “It should help with the pain. And your wolf.”

“My wolf,” I repeated, the words tasting bitter in my mouth. “Anything that helps with her would be a miracle, since I can never get her to do anything.”

Logan cocked his head. “She doesn’t come forward?”

I immediately regretted my words, the familiar instinct to close off rising in me. I didn’t want to explain, didn’t want him to know that essential part of me was broken.

“It’s nothing,” I said quickly, turning my gaze toward the window. “Forget I said anything.”

His brow furrowed, but he didn’t press me. Instead, he closed the tin with a quiet snap and tucked it back into the satchel. The silence between us stretched, heavy and awkward, until I finally blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“So,” I said, louder than I intended. “How exactly did you manage to have a house sitting here, fully furnished and waiting for me? Is this a regular thing for Orion pack? Spare bungalows for kidnapped oracles?”

His jaw tightened, his posture shifting ever so slightly. “It isn’t yours,” he said, his tone clipped. “It belonged to someone who’s no longer here.”

He looked past me, as if remembering, and I waited for him to continue. His lips parted and he took a shaky breath. My heart immediately broke, despite not knowing a thing about what had happened or who had been here before. The sadness in Logan overtook me and I choked back a silent sob. He turned to me, shoulders squared, and any sign of emotion disappeared.

“Rest,” he said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Just like that, he was gone, leaving me alone with the ghost of his touch still washing over my skin, and questions neither of us was ready to answer.