Page 32 of Alpha Charmed

“I haven’t.” The admission comes out easier than it should. “Couldn’t settle. Restless.”

Understanding flickers in her expression. She doesn’t comment on it—doesn’t make me explain what we both already know.

“Tonight.” She opens the door, pausing on the threshold to look back at me. “And Caius? Get a shirt. The shirtless alpha look is very distracting, and I have work to do.”

She’s inside before I can respond, the door closing firmly between us.

I stand on her doorstep for a moment longer, watching the sun climb higher over The Hollow’s rooftops. The wolf is quiet now—not settled, exactly, but calmer than he’s been in months. We got to protect her. We got to hold her hand. We got to see her smile at us, real and unguarded and just for us.

It’s enough. For now.

I turn and head back toward pack territory, already planning tonight’s “professional consultation.”

NINE

ANOUK

Elder Cordelia Ashworth arrives at my apothecary three hours after the attack.

I hear her before I see her—the particular cadence of her heels against cobblestone, the rustle of conservative skirts, the soft murmur of her voice as she greets my apprentice in the front room. She sounds concerned. Motherly. The perfect picture of a senior council member checking on a colleague after a traumatic experience.

I don’t believe a single syllable.

Elder Cordelia arrived full of comfort pastries from Moonpetal Bakery and careful warnings about “misplaced trust” and the wisdom of stepping back from matters that had become “too personal.” She left the muffins behind. I counted seven ways her visit was an assessment of what I knew rather than any offer of comfort. When her footsteps faded from the ward-bells, I was already certain⁠—

“She’s the traitor.”

Caius steps out of my compounding room, where he has very deliberately been standing behind the door I very deliberately left partially open. His expression is carefully blank, but I see the fury simmering beneath it.

“Probably.”

“We can’t prove it.”

“Not yet. But she’s getting desperate. That speech about delegation—she’s never suggested I step back from anything in her entire career. She wants me away from this investigation.”

“Because you’re getting close.”

“Because we’re getting close.” I look up at him, standing in my doorway like he belongs there. Like he’s always belonged there, and I’ve just been too stubborn to notice. “She specifically mentioned my cooperation with the Protection Network. My time in wolf territory.”

“She’s trying to separate us.”

“She’s trying to separate me from everyone who might help expose her.” I abandon the pretense of organizing and lean against my workbench. “First Mathilda. Now anyone who gets too involved in the investigation.”

“Then we don’t separate.” He crosses the room in three strides. “We push harder. We find the proof she’s so desperate to keep hidden.”

“Agreed.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. His proximity is doing interesting things to my concentration—interesting and distracting and not entirely unwelcome. “But we need more information. The journals from Mathilda’s cottage were incomplete. There has to be more.”

The bell above my door chimes again.

We both turn—too quickly, too obviously.

“I have information. About Mathilda’s remaining records.” Grandmother Peach walks toward me.

“Remaining records?”

“You didn’t think those burned journals were everything, did you?” Her smile sharpens. “Mathilda was thorough. She wouldn’t have trusted her life’s work to a single location. She left copies. Backups. Insurance against the destruction the Preservers attempted.”

I exchange a glance with Caius. His expression mirrors my own cautious hope.