Ephraim and I settled into our partnership quickly and easily. He was an eager teacher, and a thorough one: we spent a whole day discussing nettles alone. He cared deeply for his craft in a way that made me excited about it, too. I tried my best to force all of my knowledge of human medicine into the back corner of my mind and mold myself into a blank slate for him. If I could earn his trust and confidence, I thought, maybe it would open him up to some of my ideas, too.

I was both nervous and hopeful that my new proximity to Gabriel would have me encountering him with some regularity, but I learned quickly that he was an unfailingly hard worker. By the time I got to the house to begin work with Ephraim in the mornings, however early, he was already shut away in his office or gone someplace else for the day. If he came in or out, I never heard him. And as I left in the evenings, he was still engaged elsewhere.

The few times I did see him, he had his head down and was moving in the opposite direction. He seemed distracted. Preoccupied. I wondered whether he was avoiding me. He regretted his apology, maybe. Either that or he regrets moving me in altogether. The thought cost me several nights of sleep.

After a week of this, I'd had enough time to craft a speech in my head that I rehearsed on the walk to his house each morning: I would start with thanking him for taking care of me when I was injured, then address his generosity for offering me a place to stay. I'd tell him that I was fine going back to the apartment and the clinic and work my way up to telling him that I accepted his apology.

Despite my rehearsals, the words all sounded hollow. I didn't want to leave. As much as I couldn't bring myself to admit it, even when I was alone in the quiet of night, something inside of me had shifted. I felt...I wasn't sure what I felt. Or I did, but I was too afraid to name it. I had no right to feel anything at all.

Ephraim allowed me full access to his library of books and papers, most of which were so brittle and worn I was afraid my breath would tear straight through them. He often read with me, exclaiming to himself when he re-discovered something he'd forgotten and scribbling it down in a notebook he carried in his pocket. The two of us very quickly outgrew his tiny office and moved out to inhabit the kitchen island. Each morning before I arrived, Ephraim would lay out all of our materials for the day, and each evening, we would gently and painstakingly pack them up and store them back in the medical room.

Even still, Gabriel rarely made an appearance.

That morning, Ephraim was scanning through a stack of medical records while he had me tracking down a passage on feverfew that he swore he'd seen in the texts we'd been using several days prior, but couldn't remember which. We were again spread out across the span of the kitchen island when a cold draft blew through, rustling the corners of the pages.

"Odette," Ephraim said. I looked up from the papers in front of me. She'd come in the front door, wheeling a suitcase behind her. Hair like fire danced around her shoulders as she moved and her cheeks were flushed pink from the cold.

"Hi Ephraim," she greeted him cordially. "Is Gabriel here?"

"In his office," he remarked, then added: "Working."

Odette hummed and unraveled her scarf, and I couldn't help but watch her. Her movements were graceful. Fluid. Everything about her seemed impeccable and delicate. Just being in her presence made me feel instantly self-conscious.

"We were expecting you tomorrow."

"I thought I'd surprise him. I don't mind waiting here until he's done." She draped her jacket over the handle of her suitcase and moved to the kitchen cabinets, rummaging assuredly for a mug, then a box of tea. She pulled a kettle from one of the lower cupboards and turned towards us to fill it in the sink.

She'd let herself in unannounced. She knew her way around the kitchen. She was comfortable here, I realized. My chest tightened.

"Tea? Either of you?" She held up the kettle.

"Thank you, no." Ephraim replied. He sounded irritated and pulled a thick tome away from the edge of the sink, eyeing the stream of water as it splashed into the kettle.

Her eyes were on me now, examining. I shook my head, mouth too dry to force my words out.

"You were at the Alpha gathering, weren't you?" She asked.

I nodded and cleared my throat. "Kiera," I managed to get out. I tried not to fidget under her gaze. Odette looked me over then gave me a neutral smile. I knew the expression well: she'd sized me up and decided that I wasn't worth her concern. I wasn't a threat, nor was I competition. I was nobody.

When she turned back to the stove, I glared down at the page I'd been reading. My stomach churned bile fiercely and I ground my teeth together so hard my jaw ached. Despite my best efforts, the words were beginning to blur as a film of tears coated my eyes.

"Odette." Gabriel appeared from the back hallway. He sounded unsurprised; Ephraim had almost certainly called to him across their link. I gripped my pen tightly and tried to look busy. He didn't acknowledge either of us as he crossed the kitchen to her and took the mug of tea she held out to him.

"I missed you," she prompted. I couldn't help myself and glanced towards them. I shouldn't have. She was beaming up at him, bright-eyed and smiling, and I wished for some natural disaster to send the ceiling collapsing down on us or to open the floor beneath our feet and swallow us whole.

"Let's go to my office." Gabriel led her out of the kitchen with a hand on her mid-back. I was just grateful I hadn't heard him say that he missed her, too.

I spent a few minutes collecting myself, reading the same sentence over and over again until I was confident that my eyes had dried and the heat that had crept up my neck had faded before I looked up at Ephraim.

"I think I need an office. Either that, or you need a larger one that can fit us both."

"Oh?" He looked at me, amused. I realized this was the first thing I'd ever asked him for. I should have timed it less conspicuously, but waiting meant risking seeing Odette and Gabriel together again.

"If Alpha Gabriel is going to have...guests over, it's probably not appropriate to have medical records laying around out in the open." I chose my words carefully to craft what I hoped sounded like a valid excuse for my request.

"No," he pondered. "I don't suppose it is. I'll sort something out."

Leaving that evening, I stopped in the kitchen when I heard Gabriel and Odette talking by the front door. His voice was soft and low; hers, melodic. She was telling him goodnight and I could picture them there, standing close, gazing at each other. I backed around the corner and down the hall. I had no interest in knowing whether they'd kiss. Once I heard the door close, I counted down in my head from ten before walking back in that direction to seem like I hadn't just been standing there. Gabriel nearly ran me over as he rounded the corner. He caught me by my arm, then let go quickly.

"Sorry," I muttered, stepping out of his way. Though I expected him to breeze past me, as he had done since I moved in, he instead stopped in front of me. I kept my eyes down but I could feel his studying me.

"You're still afraid of me." It wasn't a question; he knew it as well as I did. I reeked of it. But even still, I couldn't stop the lie from spilling out of my mouth as though I could fool him.

"No I'm not." The frantic pace of my heartbeat betrayed me once again. He moved closer, slowly, until my back was pressed against the wall and when I finally looked up at him, my chin was nearly resting on his chest. He put one hand on the wall above me to bear his weight.

"You don't need to be." His voice was deep and smooth as velvet and for the briefest of moments I wondered what he would do if I moved forward, just a half-inch, just so our bodies could touch. His hair hung framing his face as he looked down at me and his scent...fuck his scent. It was intoxicating. Almost overpowering enough to distract me from my fear.

"I'm not." His eyes burned into mine and I was locked in. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to.

"Am I so frightening?" He teased. His chest vibrated as he spoke.

"No." My voice was barely above a whisper now. "Yes."

He hummed, leaning in even closer. The muscles in his arm beside my face flexed as he moved and the radiating heat from his body did nothing to calm the crimson blush in my cheeks. Gabriel inhaled and, in an instant, the softness in his face was replaced by something entirely different. First, a flash of rage, then a carefully controlled neutrality. He pushed himself off the wall to stand straight and took two large steps back. I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

"Cleaners will finish with your apartment by the end of the week," he said. Even his voice had changed. "Then you can decide if you want to move back."

I opened my mouth to speak, but he was already striding away toward his office. I wished I had the mental fortitude to call after him and deliver him the speech I'd been practicing, but when I tried to recall the words, my mind came up utterly blank.

I stood still in the hallway for several minutes as the adrenaline waned. I was afraid of him—terrified, really—but the way my body had responded to his was not only out of fear. In fact, it was hardly fear I was feeling now at all. I rubbed my hands over my face hard as though I could scrub away the burning in my cheeks. I wanted to imagine that he felt the same electricity as I had, but I was sure he just enjoyed getting a rise out of me. It was entertaining for him.

But what of the way he changed? From one moment to the next, he was a completely different man. He seemed to flip back and forth often, as he had before in my apartment and at the Alpha gathering, but it caught me off-guard each time I saw it happen. There was no warning, no clear triggers for me to avoid in the future.

I looked at his closed door for a minute longer before I crept out of the house quietly and made my way back to the guesthouse. I wouldn't allow myself to replay the scene between us in my head. Wouldn't allow myself to think of the what ifs, or the feeling of his body so close to mine. I did, however, allow myself one small bit of satisfaction: at least Odette wasn't spending the night.