Chapter 3 Obligation

Patricia

Julius holds my gaze for a beat longer than is comfortable, then glances at the folded clothes in my arms.

"The mark ceremony," he says. "I needed to speak with the designer about fabric and material."

"He's lying," says Louella. I can see that, too. Or at minimum, he's only telling part of it. But I don't have the energy to dismantle it while standing in a hallway in a robe.

"You could have asked me directly," I tell him. "And I'm fairly adaptable when it comes to fabric. You didn't need to come all the way here for that."

"I... I got back from Silvermoon Harbor this afternoon. Got time. I'll have other obligations tonight, so..." He doesn't finish the sentence.

I accept this.

He shifts his weight slightly. "I can drive you home. Go change."

"You just said you have other obligations."

"It's not an inconvenience."

"I know it's not an inconvenience to you. I can get home on my own. I've been doing it for three..." I stop quickly.

Julius's expression changes a bit. He has caught what I almost said, and he understands what it means.

"We should find a time." His tone shifts into chat. "For dinner. You and your parents. I'd like to sit down with them properly."

Now he's redirecting. "I'll check with them and let you know."

He nods once. The sign of a man concluding a meeting.

He turns to leave, makes it two steps down the corridor, then pauses. He doesn't turn back around. "Once the designer has the initial designs ready, my family will reach out to coordinate with you."

Then he is gone. I stand in the hallway and listen to the sound of his footsteps until they disappear.

"He's up to something," Louella says.

"He's a workaholic who had a spare hour and used it badly," I think back. "He probably schedules his spontaneity. The dinner suggestion was a reflex, not an intention. He's not going to show up with a seating chart and a bottle of wine."

I go back into the changing room and put my clothes on.

On the way out, I try my mother twice. No answer either time.

My phone buzzes before I reach the lobby. Not my mother. Zoe's name appears on the screen above a string of messages that escalate in enthusiasm from free tonight? to PAT. COME OUT. SERA IS ALREADY HERE AND SHE'S BEING DRAMATIC.

I sigh. Thinking about what a day I'd just been through, I decide that yes, I could use a drink.

...

The bar is loud and warm and smells like spilled beer and traces of at least four different species' pheromones, which in Oakhaven is simply what bars smell like. Sera Winter spots me from across the room before I have cleared the entrance and flings one arm up.

"Finally." The young witch grabs my wrist and pulls me into the booth. "I was thirty seconds from sending a search party."

"I was at the lab."

"You're always at the lab." Lina Hart, the Apex human heiress, is already sliding a glass toward me. "Low-proof. Your body consumes it easily. No work talk tonight. Doctor's orders."

"You're not a doctor."

"I have excellent judgment, which is better." She nods at the glass. "Drink."

I drink. Across from me, Zoe Caster is watching me. The Caster family's werewolf bloodline shows in the sharpness of her gaze.

"So," she begins, not waiting for one. "How are things? With your very mysterious, very absent Lycan lord? I heard he's been back from Silvermoon Harbor for three weeks."

"I don't care about Lycan business."

Sera makes a noise. "That's my girl! He doesn't even mark you; why should you care a shit about him?"

"Pat." Zoe leans forward and lowers her voice. "I'm going to tell you something I heard, and I want you to hear it all the way through before you react."

I wait.

"People are saying he went to Silvermoon Harbor to see a female Lycan. An old flame." Zoe watches my face carefully. "The word in the circle is that she might be the one he actually chose as his mate."

"What?" Sera's voice jumps an entire register. "He has the audacity to... Pat, you cannot let this stand."

Lina's expression goes very still and analytical. "It doesn't quite add up. If she were truly his chosen mate, why hasn't he marked her? The Morrow family's position gives him leverage no one would openly refuse."

"Maybe her identity complicates things," Zoe offers. "A family like his, everything riding on the post-war power balance and the ongoing friction with the vampire consortium. Not every match can be made public."

All three of them look at me. Bracing for my reaction.

I take a slow sip of my drink.

"I hear you," I say. "But honestly? Neither version is particularly bad for me."

The table goes quiet.

"If it's a rumor, and I don't lose sleep over gossip. If it's true..." I turn the glass in my hands. "Then he has someone he actually wants, which means he has no reason to make emotional demands on me. We stay exactly as we are: separate, functional, each handling our own affairs. Maybe one day eventually he announces her properly and I walk away clean."

He came to the lab today with a story about fabric swatches. He suggested dinner with my parents. If he has a desired mate waiting in Silvermoon Harbor, then none of that means anything except courtesy, and courtesy I can manage perfectly well.

"We'd better hope so," Louella says quietly.

The conversation drifts after that, toward Sera's ongoing feud with a neighboring witch coven and Zoe's father's latest attempt to broker an alliance she has no interest in. By the time we pay and step out into the cool air, the evening has settled into something almost ordinary.

My mother calls back while I am unlocking the front door. "You rang earlier?"

"Julius wants to have dinner with you and Dad." I push the door open. "He mentioned it today. When are you guys free?"

A long pause. "Any time at all," my mother says finally. "We're flexible. Whenever suits him."

"I'll pass that along." I step inside, pull off my shoes, and am halfway through composing the message to Julius when I hear a sound from the direction of the kitchen, like someone who lives here and is not trying to hide that fact.

I take it as the butler, Helen. I'm already turning, ready to tell her I don't need dinner tonight.

But the figure in the kitchen doorway is not Helen.

It's Julius.

I didn't see his shoes in the mudroom. Was I too occupied with Mom's call?

Occupied or not, here he is.

But... I thought he had other obligations. How is he able to come back home, then?