Chapter 4: The Things That Try to Take Her

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The peace lasted eleven days.

Lena had always believed that good things, when they came, came quietly — a warmth that grew gradually rather than arrived suddenly. What grew between her and Damien in those eleven days was not loud or dramatic. He brought her tea in the evenings. She learned when to speak and when to simply be present in his space. He touched the back of her hand once, briefly, passing her a document, and neither of them mentioned it, but the air held the memory of it for the rest of the afternoon.

She met some of his pack. They received her with a careful watchfulness that gradually, over several evenings at the private residence above the Blackwood offices, became something warmer. An older woman named Sera, who was Damien's head of security and had the unnerving habit of knowing what you were going to say before you said it, pulled Lena aside on the third evening and said: "He has not looked at anyone the way he looks at you. Not in a very long time. Perhaps not ever." She paused. "The pack will protect you. This is not a small thing."

Lena had thought about those words for days.

The threat came from Marcus Vane.