To heal a Rogue

LYSANDER

The phone in my pocket was ringing even when she had gone quiet in a way I didn’t like.

This was not like the guarded quiet from the stairwell, where she’d shut the bond down like a door slamming on my fingers. This was different. She now sat on the edge of the settee in the lounge with her hands folded in her lap, staring at some fixed point on the wall that wasn’t actually there, and something about the stillness of her made the hair on my arms rise.

”You clearly seem to hate this,” I said. ”And the way it seems... it cannot just be the bond. I understand you hate the situation, given how it happened and the predicament you are now in. But this is frankly starting to feel like something else.”

She didn’t answer right away. Her jaw worked once, twice, like she was chewing on whether the truth was worth the cost of saying it.

”There’s something your uncle wanted to tell you,” she said finally, ignoring the conversation that I was trying to make and focusing on something else entirely. ”Before he died.”

I went still.

”What?”

”But I’m not telling you.” She looked up at me then, and there was nothing soft in her eyes at all. ”Not until you break the bond.”

I laughed, short and humorless, disbelief crawling up my throat before I could stop it. ”You’re lying.”

”Believe what you want but you can tell. There is this sick connection between us now. There is not much I can hide from you if I am not shielding.”

I reached for the bond without meaning to, the way I’d done in the stairwell, some instinct in me needing to check her words against whatever truth lived underneath them. It came back clean and sharp, with no static or deception threading through it anywhere. She meant every word. She actually knew something, and she was actually willing to sit on it like a weapon rather than hand it to me for free.

”You’re not lying,” I said, quieter now.

”No.”

”Then tell me.”

”Like I said, break the bond first.”

I stared at her, and something in my chest tightened at the sheer audacity of it, at the way she sat there with her spine straight and her chin up like she hadn’t spent the last hour bleeding through wolfsbane rope three floors below and would still be there suffering if I hasn’t offered a hand.

But two could play that game.

”No,” I said.

”Then I guess you’ll never know.”

”Bonnie.”

”Don’t.”

I let the silence hold for a moment, testing whether either of us would break first. Neither of us did.

”Can I shower?” she said instead, the demand in her voice gone, replaced with something more tired as she changed the topic a second time. Ahw was trying to act like she wasn’t bothered that her drop in the bucket failed spectacularly. ”I feel like I have half of that cell still on my skin.”

I was curious. But not that curious. Uncle has already revealed plenty. Surely he would not have had something even dire that he kept away from me until it was too late.

My phone rang again and given the rapid succession that it was coming in, it could only be one person.

I cleared my throat before I spoke.

”I don’t trust any werewolf in this estate around you right now,” I said. ”Not after what just happened in that infirmary. Not after what that sentinel did to you with his rifle. I’m not leaving you with someone who might decide their hate and grief should overshadow common sense.”

Her eyes narrowed at that, sharp enough to cut. ”I don’t need to be watched like I’ll run the second no one’s looking. I don’t need an Omega or Sentinel standing by. I just need some privacy.”

”I didn’t say that.”

”You implied it.” She stood, and even exhausted, even bruised, she carried herself like she refused to let the room see her waver. ”If you trust me at all, even a little, give me the chance to prove it. I’m not asking you to leave the estate. I’m asking you to leave a room so I can clean up.”

I looked at her for a long moment. Something about the way she said it, flat and unflinching, cut through whatever argument I’d been building.

”Fine,” I said.

Something in her shoulders eased, just barely, just enough for me to notice.

”Well... this is a guest room,” I said, nodding toward the door behind her. ”You can use that bathroom and there should be plain clothes in the wardrobe. I’ll be right outside.”

She nodded once, short and stiff, and didn’t thank me. I hadn’t expected her to.

I stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind me, and the moment the latch clicked, my phone buzzed hard against my hip.

I already knew who it was before I looked. Only one person called this many times in a single morning without waiting for a response.

”For the love of the goddess,” I muttered, and answered.

”What the fuck happened?” Sofiane’s voice came through before I’d even gotten the phone properly to my ear. ”I’ve been calling for an hour.”

”I know it is insane,” I said, rubbing a hand over my face. ”But I am sure you would have heard it all already. Uncle was murdered.”

”That is not what the fuck I’m talking about.” He then paused. ”That is tragic of course and everyone is agitated about it. But—”

I stopped in the middle of the corridor. ”Then what are you talking about?”

”I just got a call,” Sofiane said, ”from our dear cousin. Johann. Telling me the whole Asker family should show up tonight because apparently you’re about to be crowned King and you said nothing!”

I went very still.

”He called you?”

”He called me,” Sofiane said, ”sounding entirely too pleasant about the whole thing, considering his own father is barely cold and he isn’t even being considered for the seat. Said something about wanting the family properly represented for such a historic occasion.” A pause. ”I didn’t even know you were being crowned anything, Lysander. I am your brother and I had to hear it from him.”

I leaned my shoulder against the wall, my mind already turning the information over, looking for the angle Johann had buried inside it.

”He’s up to something,” I said, mostly to myself.

”No shit,” Sofiane said. ”He must be pissed to death that the elders picked you.”

I closed my eyes for a second, picturing Johann’s face red as a beet.

”The elders did not pick me. Uncle did, before he died.”

That seemed to surprise Sofiane even more. ”What the fuck? Why? Also who will take over Lily of the Valley?”

I couldn’t tell if he was excited at the idea that the responsibility would fall on him or horrified. With Sofiane. You could never tell. But I half-wanted to come clean.

I was not really interested in the Alpha King seat after all. I only did this to save her and of course, bring the real criminals to light.

Plus, it was not really fair to throw Sofiane into a position that was now empty because of my selfishness and obsession.

So I settled for the safe answer instead. Once evening had come and pass, I would know where to go with this next.

”Sofiane, I’ll talk you later. Something came up.”

Before he could even argue about it, I ended the call.

Once that was done, I felt the bond shut off.

My immediate reaction happened before I could even think.

My hand grabbed at the door and I was about to tear it open and look for her.

It was international after all. But the second my hand touched the handle, I paused.

Because... This felt like a test. She had pushed that I trusted her and here I was doubting her. It was possible I was overthinking and she had not already found a way to pry the window of the bathroom open and was now trying to find a way out.

I had to trust her.