Chapter 31

Kayla

That night, I trudged toward Nicholas’s room with my pillow tucked under one arm and a scowl plastered across my face.

I was sharing a bedroom. A bed. With Nicholas.

If someone had told me a year ago that this would be my life, I would have laughed them out of the room. But here I was, about to step into what was sure to be a month-long exercise in patience.

The door was already slightly ajar, the soft amber glow of a bedside lamp spilling into the hallway. I pushed it open with my foot, half-expecting to find Nicholas sprawled across the bed like some arrogant king. Instead, he was sitting up against the headboard with a book in his hands.

I stopped in my tracks, blinking. “I didn’t know you knew how to read.”

He didn’t even glance up, just flipped a page with exaggerated care. “What can I say? I’m full of surprises.”

I dropped my pillow onto the bed with a huff. “Yeah, like your ability to irritate me without even trying.”

Nicholas finally looked up then, his smirk widening. He then turned the book upside down and held it up. “There. Is this better?”

I stared at him with wide eyes, the absurdity catching me completely off guard. He just shot me a lopsided grin, licked his finger, and turned the page—still upside down.

I couldn’t help it. Despite myself, I burst out laughing, nearly doubling over with the force of it. He lowered the book and grinned, clearly pleased with himself.

“You’re such an idiot,” I managed between chuckles, flopping as far onto the other side of the bed as I could possibly get.

“And yet,” he said, setting the book on the nightstand, “you’re still here.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled the blanket up to my chest as I nestled into the pillow. “Only because I don’t want to move my stuff every week. Don’t read too much into it, playboy.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t even dream of it, firecracker.”

We settled into silence, the lamp casting a soft, warm light over the room. I could hear the faint ticking of a clock on the wall, the occasional rustle of fabric as one of us shifted.

“I’ll take you to the guild hall tomorrow night,” Nicholas suddenly said, breaking the quiet.

I turned my head to glance at him. He wasn’t smirking—clearly serious for once. “Alright,” I said slowly, half expecting him to burst out into laughter and tell me he was fucking with me. But he didn’t. “Anything I should know beforehand?”

“Not really. Just be ready.”

I nodded, turning back to the ceiling. But then he spoke again, his voice quieter this time. “You’ve mentioned there were… attempts against you after your father fell into a coma. What happened?”

The question caught me off guard, and for a moment, I considered brushing it off. But there was something about the way he asked, like he genuinely wanted to know, that made me want to tell him the truth.

“The first one happened on my twentieth birthday,” I said slowly, the memory all too fresh even now, a few years later. “Less than twenty-four hours after my dad went into a coma.”

Nicholas shifted beside me, the mattress dipping slightly under his weight. “That soon?”

“Yeah,” I said. “One of my father’s most trusted friends tried to poison me. With my birthday cake, of all things.”

Nicholas sat up straighter. “How did you know it was poisoned?”

“My Beta, Henry, caught it,” I said. “He could smell the poison before I ate it. Smacked it out of my hand, spraying frosting all over the place.” I shuddered at the memory. I could still see the wild look in Henry’s eyes, could still hear the way the room suddenly went utterly silent.

“No one eat the cake!” he had shouted. “It’s been poisoned!”

“If it weren’t for him,” I whispered, “I wouldn’t be here right now.”

And that wasn’t the only time that Henry and Ava had saved my life, either. I owed them both so much. I owed them everything. They were my only true friends in this world.

For a few moments, Nicholas didn’t say anything, and I could feel his gaze on me as I stared at the ceiling, my mind replaying those long, harrowing days. Everything had been so shaky right after my father went into his coma. It was like the entire pack was plotting to take his place, even if it meant killing his only daughter.

“We caught the traitor and imprisoned him,” I continued, my voice quieter now. “Three days. That’s how long I spent interrogating him before he finally cracked. I didn’t eat, didn’t sleep. I just needed answers.”

Nicholas exhaled softly, his tone more thoughtful than teasing now. “You were only twenty.”

I shrugged, rolling onto my side to face away from him. “You have to do certain things to survive in this brutal world.”

He didn’t argue with me. Instead, after a soft huff from him and a moment of silence, I heard the quiet click of the lamp being turned off, plunging the room into darkness. The mattress shifted as he laid down, keeping a respectable distance between us.

For a while, I just lay there, staring into the shadows. The bed was far too big even for two people who couldn’t stand one another, but I was still acutely aware of him on the other side. The warmth of his body seemed to radiate across the expanse, and I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling of sharing such an intimate space with someone I barely knew, let alone liked.

Eventually, I grabbed a spare pillow and shoved it between us. “Just in case you roll over or something,” I muttered.

“Noted,” he replied dryly, and I could hear the smirk in his voice. But thankfully, he didn’t push the issue.

The steady rhythm of his breathing eventually lulled me to sleep.

When I woke the next morning, the first thing I noticed was the emptiness beside me. I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and glanced around the room. Nicholas was gone.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stretching before throwing on my robe and heading toward the door. The house was quiet, the early morning light filtering through the windows as I made my way to the kitchen for some coffee.

But as I passed by Nicholas’s study, I noticed that the door was slightly ajar, and I peeked inside.

Nicholas was sprawled on the couch in front of the fireplace, one arm draped over his eyes, a thin blanket barely covering his broad frame. A pillow was tucked under his head, and his face was softened in sleep.

For a moment, I hesitated. He looked… too big for that couch.

Had he moved here in the middle of the night?

Feeling a pang of guilt for pushing him out of his own bed, I grabbed another blanket from the back of a chair and draped it over him. He didn’t stir, his chest rising and falling steadily.

My eyes then drifted toward the nearby desk, where a stack of papers lay scattered haphazardly. Notes were scrawled in messy handwriting, phrases that made my stomach tighten.

“What did she know?”

“Grace’s story doesn’t add up.”

“Did the poison actually kill her, or something else?”

I leaned closer, my curiosity getting the better of me as I tried to piece together the fragments. His mother. The poison. The connection to Grace. It was all tangled, a puzzle he was clearly desperate to solve.

“Kayla.”

I jumped at the groggy voice behind me, my heart leaping into my throat. Spinning around, I found Nicholas glaring at me from beneath the blanket, his amber eyes half-lidded with sleep but fixed on me.

“For the love of the Moon Goddess,” he muttered, his voice rough with sleep. “Quit snooping.”

I squeaked like a mouse caught stealing the cheese and bolted from the room, his quiet chuckle following me down the hall.