Chapter 230 - That look is scaring me

’He’s nice...,’ Marsha said, from Seraphine’s mind, like she’d been sitting on that opinion for a while and had finally decided there was no reason to keep it to herself.

Seraphine’s throat closed around the spoonful of dessert she’d just taken. She spent a solid three seconds not choking, set her spoon down carefully, and turned her full attention inward.

’Don’t,’ she said. ’Don’t finish that sentence.’

’I’m just—’ Marsha was saying when Seraphine suspected something and interrupted, ’Are you talking to his wolf right now?’ Because that was the only explanation for why the whole evening had felt like it was running on a current nobody had told her about.

Marsha took a small pause, which was basically a yes. ’He asked if we’d be open to being friends with them.’ She paused. ’Just until they find their mate. His human is apparently working on restoring the bond.’

Seraphine went very still.

So it was Voren. He was the one pursuing restoration of the mate bond and Bloodfang had apparently let out the secret to Marsha.

’Tell him no,’ Seraphine said to Marsha before adding, ’and stop flirting. I’m not asking twice. You keep this up and I’m shutting you out completely.

Marsha went quiet. Not sulky, just quiet. Which, from Marsha, was its own kind of agreement.

Seraphine exhaled through her nose, picked her spoon back up, and made herself focus on the food.

The dragon stew was what she worked through next, smoky, deeply spiced broth sitting heavy and slow in the bowl, built around charred meat and root vegetables she couldn’t name, chili oil pooled across the top. It tasted the way a forest at night smells, dark and layered and faintly like something you probably shouldn’t want but absolutely do.

The Nebula platter came last of the savory dishes, and it was almost too beautiful to eat. Seafood and tropical fruit arranged in these sweeping arcs, edible glitter worked into foams and threw it around the plate in tiny prismatic sparks, the whole thing looking like a galaxy caught mid-spin.

She ate it anyway, and it tasted better than it looked.

She couldn’t pick a favorite, and went back for seconds of two of them, telling herself it was research.

And then the aurora dessert sphere arrived, and for a moment she genuinely forgot about everything else.

It sat there on the plate like it had come from somewhere that had different rules about what was possible. A chocolate shell lacquered in aurora colors that bled into each other at the edges, cracked open tableside with one clean tap that let out a breath of cool sweetened air, revealing the glowing sorbet and sparkling sugar crystals packed inside.

The colors deepened after the shell broke, spreading slow and luminous across the plate. Seraphine looked at it for a second before she smiled. Not a full one, just that involuntary softening that happens when something catches you genuinely off guard with how beautiful it is, and then she tasted it.

Perfect. Cold and rich and sweet without being too much, the sugar crystals dissolving against her tongue in little bursts. She let herself have that moment completely. It was good, and she’d decided to be honest about things that were good.

She was still in it when the waiter appeared at Voren’s side, and the angle of him, that careful downward lean, the way his voice had dropped to almost nothing, reached her before any words did.

"What’s wrong?" she asked, setting her spoon down. "That look is scaring me."

Voren put a smile on his face with the practiced ease of a man who’d learned to keep his expression from becoming a problem. "Did you happen to offend someone recently?"

Seraphine blinked. "Excuse me?"

"There’s are rogue assassins looking for you," he said, watching her face the way you watch something you’re not sure is going to hold.

Her eyes went wide from shock. "What?"

"Don’t worry about it right now," Voren said, casually picking up his fork. "Finish eating."

Every last trace of appetite she had left evaporated on the spot. But then she watched Voren spear a bite of dragon stew with the complete, unhurried ease of a man entirely satisfied with his meal, and something about that steadiness, the absolute lack of alarm in it reached across the table and did something to her nervous system.

She exhaled, picked her spoon back up, and finished the dessert sphere bite by bite, not really tasting it the way she had three minutes ago, but eating it because panicking at the table wasn’t going to change anything and he was right.

When the dishes were cleared, Voren leaned back in his chair and looked at her. "Which was your favorite?"

"I liked all of them," she said honestly, even if it came out a little more contained than it would’ve earlier in the night. "Thank you."

She was still avoiding his eyes when the waiter came back, moving toward their table with an urgency he was doing his best to keep off the surface. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Alpha Voren." He leaned in close. "They’re threatening to tear this place apart."

The warmth left Voren’s face all at once. What replaced it was something colder and more focused, and that was significantly more unsettling.

He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t move fast. He just looked at the waiter with eyes that had gone very dark and quiet.

"I came here for a peaceful meal," he said. "They’re welcome to try." There was silence for a beat before he spoke again. "Tell them the she-wolf they’re looking for is under my protection."

The waiter started to turn, but Voren’s voice cold voice sounded once more.

"One more thing." The waiter stopped. Voren hadn’t looked up, but his voice carried the absolute unhurried authority of a man who expected every word to land exactly where he put it. "I want to know exactly who sent them."