Alpha Terrell’s POV
Terrell.
I sat up. My heart was still doing sothing erratic in my chest - the spike of fear becoming sothing else as my eyes adjusted and found his silhouette in the doorway, the familiar shape of him, the particular way he stood.
"You almost scared..." I pressed my hand flat against my sternum. "I thought..."
"I heard sothing in the corridor." He stepped inside. Left the door slightly open. "Soone moving near your room. One of the guards will have them by now but I wanted to make sure..." He stopped. Looked at sitting up in the dark with my hand over my heart. Sothing moved through his expression. "I’m sorry. I didn’t an to frighten you."
"You didn’t..." I started.
We both knew that was a lie.
He crossed the room - not to the bed, to the window. He checked the latch, the sa way he had checked it weeks ago on a different night that felt like a different life. Checked the secondary catch that I hadn’t even known existed. Moved to the connecting door and checked that too.
I watched him.
"Terrell," I said.
He turned.
"Was it soone sent to harm ?"
A pause that told sothing even before he spoke. "We don’t know yet."
"But possibly."
"Possibly."
I looked at the floor. Utterly and completely scared. "It’s becoming a normal occurrence," I said. "Isn’t it."
"Yes."
He ca and sat in the chair by the bed.
Not the bed - the chair.
He sat in it and looked at and in the thin moonlight I could see his face clearly - the jaw, the eyes, the line between his brows that appeared when he was carrying sothing.
"I need to talk to you," he said. "Tomorrow. There’s sothing I need to discuss with you and rrick. Together."
"What is it?"
"Tomorrow," he said. "Tonight just..." He stopped.
I waited.
"Sleep," he said. "I’ll stay until the guard confirms what was in the corridor."
"You don’t have to..."
"I know." He settled back in the chair with the ease of soone who had done this before. "Sleep, Angel."
I looked at him in the chair.
At the blanket on the arm.
At the thousand years sitting in a chair at the edge of my bed for reasons he kept describing as practical and I kept not believing.
"You followed into the garden last night," I said.
He didn’t say anything.
"You said you were going for a business eting. But you followed ."
Still nothing.
"Why?"
The silence stretched.
Then: "Because I couldn’t not," he said. Quietly. "Now sleep."
I lay back down.
I stared at the ceiling.
The chair was quiet beside .
Because I couldn’t not.
I pressed my hand flat on the book under my pillow and looked at the moonlight on the floor and felt the room around - warm, attended, the feeling of a space occupied by soone who was paying close attention.
I closed my eyes.
"Terrell," I said, quietly, into the ceiling.
"Mm."
"Thank you. For last night. For the seven days you stayed to take care of ." I breathed. "For always saving my life"
Silence.
"Go to sleep," he said.
His voice was very gentle.
I went to sleep.
****
I woke up slowly.
Not the way I had been waking up since the paralysis - that careful, self-awareness, the checking of fingers and toes and the relief of finding everything present. This was different. This was the waking up of soone who had slept properly and fully.
I lay still for a mont and simply felt it.
When did I last sleep like that?
I couldn’t place it.
I turned my head.
Terrell was in the chair.
Still there. Exactly as I had last seen him - seated, one arm resting on the chair’s arm, his head not quite leaning back. He was awake. He had probably been awake for a while, or possibly all night.
And he was watching .
Not intrusively - not the concentrated surveillance of a guard. Just... watching. The way you watch sothing you have been sitting with for a long ti in the quiet. His face in the morning light was different from his face at night. Less arranged. The controlled evenness still present but with less effort behind it.
I looked at him.
He looked at .
Neither of us said anything.
I wasn’t sure how long that lasted. It was sothing more like... stillness. The kind that exists between people who have run out of the energy required to maintain distance.
The knock ca before either of us decided what to do with the silence.
Two maids ca in, carrying between them the various apparatus of a morning routine - hot water, fresh clothes, bathroom items.
"My lady." The first one bobbed her head. "We’ve co to help you dress for the day."
I glanced at Terrell.
He stood.
Good, I thought. He’ll go now and I can breathe properly.
"I’ll wait in the corridor," he said.
I stared at him.
"Until you’re done," he said. "Then I’ll take you down."
I opened my mouth.
He looked at with the calm, immovable expression.
I closed my mouth.
"Fine," I said.
He walked to the door and went through it, and I heard the sound of him standing guard, the presence of him just the other side of the wood. The maids exchanged a quick surprised glance that they suppressed imdiately.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the closed door.
He’s standing outside.
He’s standing outside my door while I bathe.
I was aware of this throughout the entire process in a way that was entirely unreasonable given that he was on the other side of solid wood and could hear nothing.
I was aware of it anyway.
The bath was warm and I sat in the water and looked at the wall and thought about the way he had said because I couldn’t not in the dark last night, and I thought about it very carefully and at length, turning it over and examining it from every available angle.
Because I couldn’t not.
Not: because it was my duty. Not: because you are the Luna and require protection. Not even the version that was technically true - because soone was trying to harm you.
Because I couldn’t not.
I sank slightly lower in the water.
Don’t, I told myself.
He killed your family.
I know.
He lied to you for weeks.
I know.
He carried you over his shoulder through a forest when you tried to escape.
That is not the point...
He sat and watched over you for seven days.
I pressed my hand over my eyes and told myself firmly that this was all very complex and required careful rational thought and not a warm bath and a closed door with a man on the other side of it.
The maids dressed accordingly.
Sothing simple, clean and comfortable.
I looked at myself in the mirror.
My face, woken and rested. My hair, properly managed. The hand - bandaged neatly, less swollen, already more recognizably my own.
I looked... I looked fine.
I looked, if I was being honest, better than fine.
He’s going to see you like this, said so unhelpful part of my brain.
That is not relevant, I replied to it.
I went to the door and opened it.
Terrell was standing in the corridor with his back against the wall and his arms loosely folded and the expression of a man who had been waiting and was not a bit bothered about it.
He looked at .
A full second of looking.
Then: "How’s the hand?"
"Better," I said.
He nodded. Gestured down the corridor. "Let’s go down for breakfast."
I walked beside him.
We didn’t speak on the way down.
But it was not the silence of dinner.
It was - I searched for what it was and found sothing I hadn’t expected. Sothing that felt...
Easy.
rrick was at the breakfast table.
He looked up when we ca in together - both of us, through the sa door, at the sa ti - and sothing moved across his face that he converted smoothly into a smile before it could beco legible.
"Good morning," he said. "How’s the hand?"
"Everyone keeps asking that," I said, sitting.
"Because we’re invested in the answer." He poured tea without being asked and pushed it toward . "You slept well?"
"Remarkably well," I said.
I didn’t look at Terrell.
Terrell said nothing.
rrick looked between us with carefully, as if trying to read sothing in the space between two people, and I watched him decide not to say whatever he was thinking.
Breakfast was... different from dinner.
Not entirely easy... nothing between the three of us was entirely easy yet, there was too much weight in the history for ease to arrive fully ford. But the quality of the air was different. Terrell asked - directly, looking at my face rather than the middle distance - whether the ache was still concentrated in the heel of the palm or whether it had shifted. I told him. He listened. rrick watched this exchange with the quietly satisfied expression of a man watching sothing go right.
We ate.
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