Lilith woke up alone and saw that Nicholas was gone.
She knew before she even opened her eyes. The warmth behind her was missing, the weight of his arm no longer across her waist. Just the indent in the pillow beside her and the faint smell of him still on the sheets.
She lay there for a moment, looking at the ceiling.
The light coming through the curtains was proper morning light now. Not the pale grey of five in the morning. The time should be around eight o’clock maybe. Nine.
She got up, washed her face, and changed. Then went downstairs.
Agnes was in the kitchen.
Of course Agnes was in the kitchen.
She looked up when Lilith came through the door and pointed at the counter where a plate was already waiting, her steady eyes taking in Lilith’s face without saying anything.
Lilith sat down and pulled the plate close to herself and started to eat.
***
She found Lucian in the garden later that morning, he was sitting on the low stone wall at the edge of the garden with his face tipped up toward the morning sun and his eyes closed.
Lilith walked over and sat beside him on the wall.
He did not open his eyes but his lips curved into a smile."I could hear you coming from the corner," he said.
"Good morning to you too," she said.
The smile on his face deepened, but he still didn’t open his eyes.
They sat there for a moment in the sun. The was garden quiet around them. Somewhere across the compound she could hear the pack moving through their morning....voices, distant activity, the estate resuming ordinary life.
"Nicholas told me," she said. "About last night."
Lucian opened his eyes and looked at her.
"How much did he tell you?" Lucian asked.
"He told me that your chain cracked," she said. "That Finn held you. and that he talked you back."
Lucian looked at the garden in front of them.
"That is accurate," he said.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
He was quiet for a while.
"Yes," he said. Then: "No." He exhaled and then said with a tired face. "I don’t know. Maybe both."
She looked at his hands where they rested on his knees. The wrists where the chains had been. She could not see marks, wolves healed too fast for that.
"Zev wanted to come to you," Lucian said. He wasn’t looking at her now, he was still looking at the garden. "That is the honest answer to your question. Last night when the moon peaked, Zev wanted to come to you, and I...." He paused. "It took everything I had to stop him, The chain helped. Finn helped. Nicholas helped." He glanced at her. "But mostly it was knowing that you were up there and that you were safe that got me through last night."
Lilith looked at him for a while and she made up her mind to tell him what she had been wanting to tell him for a while now.
"Lucian," she called out.
"Yes." Lucian answered.
"I am not afraid of Zev," she said.
He turned and looked at her properly.
"You should be," he said. "Last night, what Zev was trying to do...you wouldn’t have survived it."
"I know," she said. "I am not saying it was not dangerous. I am saying I am not afraid of him." She held his gaze. "I am not afraid of any of you."
Lucian looked at her for a long moment.
"That is either very brave or very stupid," he said.
"Probably both," she said, then she reached out and put her hand on Lucian’s arm.
He looked down at it, then covered her hand with his.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For holding the chain."
Lucian looked at their hands.
"Thank you," he said. "For being worth holding it for."
They sat there until Agnes called them in for a second breakfast that nobody had asked for. Lilith had to tell her that they would come inside later because she knew that Agnes would have insisted otherwise. Everyone knows how much Agnes loves feeding people.
***
Lilith was coming back from the garden when she ran into Sebastian.
Not literally this time.
He was standing at the side entrance of the estate with his shoulder against the door frame, his arms crossed and his dark eyes on her from the moment she came around the corner. Like he had been waiting there and knew exactly when she would appear.
She stopped and looked at him.
He looked back.
"You were with Lucian?" he asked
"Yes," she said and walked towards him and when she got to where he was standing, she tilted her head to study his face "Are you okay?" she asked
"I am fine, Lilith." He replied.
She looked at him, and he looked back without flinching.
"But Nicholas told me that you were on the floor," she said. "He said you were there the whole night."
"Nicholas talks too much," Sebastian replied.
"He told me you managed it somehow," she said. "But he didn’t tell me how you did it."
Sebastian was quiet for a while. His eyes moved over her face slowly, Then he reached into his pocket and held out his hand.
Her underwear. The ones Nicholas had pulled off her in the office before the moon rose. Still folded. Slightly crumpled from hours in his pocket.
Lilith looked at them, then at Sebastian.
He held her gaze without any apology in it.
"It helped," he said simply. "Your scent. Having something real when Rhen was...." He stopped. "It helped."
She took underwear from his hand. "Thank you," she said.
He frowned slightly. "For what?"
"For finding a way to hold on," she said.
Sebastian looked at her for a long moment.
Something moved through his face that she had learned to read by now.
"Come here," he said.
He pushed off the door frame and opened his arms and she walked into them.
His arms came around her immediately, both of them, pulling her against his chest
His face came down into her hair. She felt him take a long sniff of her hair.
After a while, she pulled back slightly and looked up at him.
"Come and eat," she said. "Agnes made enough food for the entire pack."
Sebastian looked down at her and smiled. "Agnes always makes enough food for the entire pack," he said.
"Yes and that is why everyone loves her" Lilith said. "Now come lets go inside, before she sent Sera"
"Alright," Sebastian said and they walked back inside together, the door closing behind them.
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