Chapter 274: Chapter 274 – We kissed. It was...

Voren reached the passenger side of Corvine’s car right around the same time Corvine disappeared into the tree line, his clothes folded and left on the back seat, the car sitting quietly on the shoulder of the road with the hazards blinking.

He knocked on the window.

Seraphine took her time. She let a full five seconds pass before she rolled it down halfway, sunglasses still on, expression arranged into something between bored and annoyed.

"What now, Voren."

Not a question. A statement with a period at the end of it.

"We didn’t finish our conversation." His forearm rested on the roof of the car, casual, like he had all the time in the world. "You left before we could."

A slow breath pushed out through her nose. She was genuinely grateful for the sunglasses right now. They were doing a lot of work. "We kissed. It was a mistake because our wolves took over and made it happen. Done. Finished. Move on." She waved one hand lightly. "You can go now."

Something moved behind his eyes. Fast, then gone. His grip on the roof of the car tightened for just a second. "That’s really how you categorize it? Just like that?"

"Yes."

"So that’s how it goes whenever a man kisses you? Wolves did it, doesn’t count, next?"

Her head turned toward him slowly. The kind of slow that was its own warning. Her mouth opened —

"I didn’t even come here about the kiss." Voren cut in front of whatever she was about to say. "That’s not why I followed you."

He straightened up slightly, eyes on her face. "I wanted to tell you that whatever you decide to do about Ravyn, I’m behind it. All of it. You won’t have to look over your shoulder and wonder if I’m going to step in and complicate things. I won’t."

Seraphine went still.

She reached up and pulled the sunglasses off, just enough to actually look at him, to check his face for the angle, for the catch, for whatever was hiding underneath it. But his expression just sat there, open and steady, and it didn’t look like a setup.

"If that’s all you came to say." She put the glasses back on. "Then thank you."

Voren looked at her. He stood there for a moment and the thoughts running through his head had no clean way out through words.

She ran so hot and so cold that being around her felt like standing in a city where the weather changed every twenty minutes. Last night she had cried in his arms and let him hold her through it.

This morning she was looking at him like he was a mildly inconvenient stranger in her way.

’Don’t act surprised.’ Bloodfang’s voice was dry, unbothered, the tone of someone who had been watching and had already figured it out. ’You spent the first half of connecting with her being an idiot. What did you expect? And before you ask, no, I can’t tell you what she’s feeling right now. Her wolf locked herself away. I’ve got nothing.’

Voren exhaled quietly.

"Are you still standing there?" Seraphine’s voice came through the window without even turning to look at him.

He stepped back from the car, but didn’t go back to his own though, not yet. He stayed on the shoulder with his hands in his pockets, watching the tree line for Corvine’s return.

A few minutes passed.

When Corvine came back out of the woods, shaking leaves from his hair and rolling his neck like a man who had just dropped forty pounds of tension, he pulled on his clothes without rushing and noticed Voren still planted there by the road.

Voren watched him and something changed in his expression, not hostility exactly, more like the slow turn of a thought he wasn’t completely done having.

"You know, it genuinely amazes me." His eyes moved back to Seraphine. "The way you manage to keep so many men orbiting around you at the same time." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

He paused for just a second, something rearranging itself behind his expression. "Right. I almost forgot." His voice went lighter, almost conversational. "You’ve got a gifted wolf. Makes sense. That’s where all that confidence comes from."

He turned before she could get a single word out and walked back to his car.

Seraphine sat there with her mouth slightly open and the response she had been building dissolving before it could become anything useful.

Corvine glanced at her sideways as he got behind the wheel. Said nothing. Smart enough to know when silence was the right call.

They pulled back onto the road and Voren’s car followed, steady and unhurried, all the way through the familiar stretch of streets until Corvine slowed in front of the inn and pulled to the curb.

The place was midday quiet. A couple of guests by the front entrance, the sound of someone running a vacuum somewhere upstairs, afternoon light coming through the front windows in warm flat panels.

Tallulah was behind the counter, moving through her shift with the kind of practiced efficiency that meant her hands were busy and her mind was somewhere else entirely. She looked up when the door opened, and for a half second her whole face reorganized itself into confusion.

"Luna." She straightened immediately. "I thought you were coming tomorrow."

"Changed my mind." Seraphine was already moving around the counter. "Let’s go."

"But I don’t have any of my things here, I—"

"Where we’re going, that’s not a problem." A small smile pulled at Seraphine’s mouth, brief and genuine. "Come on."

Tallulah stopped arguing. She untied her apron, set it on the counter, and followed.

She made it outside and stopped.

Corvine was leaning against the car, arms crossed, watching them come through the door. Tallulah’s whole posture changed in an instant, shoulders pulling in, chin dropping. By the time she reached the car she had her head down completely, not lifting it.

"Beta Corvine." Her voice came out quiet and careful. "Good day."

Corvine’s head tilted. He pushed off the car slowly and looked at her with something between curiosity and amusement. "How do you know who I am?"

She kept her head lowered.

He uncrossed his arms and stepped slightly closer. "Hey. Look up. Let me see your face."