Eleven Nights to Ruin Me

Chapter 53: She Must Like Him

Seven watched the Alpha take the longer route.

The pack house entrance was right there — twenty steps, straight ahead, but Rodrigo’s eyes grazed it once and moved away, and he turned down the east corridor without a word, the one that wound past the council chambers and added five unnecessary minutes to the walk. Seven followed without comment and kept his observations to himself.

The study was dark when they entered, the torches unlit, the room carrying the cold of a space that hadn’t been occupied in weeks. Seven moved to the wall and lit them one by one while Rodrigo crossed directly to the compartment against the far wall, the one built into the stone beside the window. He pulled it open and stood there for a moment before reaching past the newer bottles at the front and pulling out one from the back — old, the label worn at the corners. He carried it to the table and set it down.

Seven pulled two cups from the drawer and placed them across from each other and took his seat.

Rodrigo sat and undid the cover, filling both cups with the alcohol.

Seven wrapped both hands around his cup and settled back. "You never drink," he said.

Rodrigo picked up his cup, bringing it to his lips, "...perhaps for a change." he murmured, drinking from it.

Seven said nothing as he stared at him. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

The candles on the table were low, the light they threw warm and close and uneven, the flame bending occasionally when the draft moved through the room. The rest of the hall sat dark around them, the corners lost to shadow, the only sound the faint creak of the table settling and the distant noise of the pack house beyond the walls. Rodrigo drank from his cup and set it down and his eyes went to the grain of the table, then to the window where the dark outside gave nothing back, then to the table again.

"How is the army?" Rodrigo asked. ’’It’s been months since my last visit to the barracks,’’

Rodrigo turned the cup once in his hand, then refilled it.

Seven chuckled with a nod, ’’With the full moons barely ten left, the other packs have more important things to think about, hence the lycans have little to do these days."

Rodrigo nodded, his eyes lifting to him.

’’And Caleb, your surbordinate, has he not recovered yet. You are going grey managing two posts at once."

Seven rubbed at his forehead, a short exhale through his nose. "He sent word he would return within the week."

"It has been a month." Rodrigo leaned back slightly in his chair, his eyes still on the cup. "Wolfsbane does not take that long to clear the system." Rodrigo said, ’’Ask him to return immediately, he is needed for the operation.’’

Seven cleared his throat. ’’I will first thing tomorrow. He just got married," Seven smiled. "His wife has likely kept him from rushing back."

Rodrigo’s hand went still against the cup at the word wife. He blinked once, slowly, and brought the cup to his lips and gulped.

Seven watched him over the rim of his own cup and did not say a word.

"Have the lycans for the operation been briefed?" Rodrigo asked, setting his cup down.

"Yes. I also sent a small group to survey the area tomorrow and report back."

"Good." Rodrigo nodded.

The word sat there and Rodrigo didn’t follow it with anything. He’d exhausted his questions, and there was nothing else keeping him from the thoughts pressing in on him.

His thumb moved in a slow circle around the rim of his cup and left his hand wrapped around it without lifting it again, just holding it there against the wood like he needed something to hold onto.

The candle nearest him flickered and steadied.

Seven waited.

He had noticed the way Rodrigo looked at the Luna earlier that day — a look that lasted a fraction too long before being cut off and filed away behind the usual blankness. He had noticed the way he’d shut him out when he told him about Dominic, and yet he caught him returning to his quarters barely an hour later, and the picture he had built was one he was fairly certain would put him in the dungeons if he named it out loud.

Rodrigo’s hand tightened around the cup once, fingers pressing white against the ceramic, then loosened. He cleared his throat quietly.

"This is about a friend."

Seven blinked.

"A friend of mine." Rodrigo’s fingers spread flat against the table beside the cup, pressing down as though steadying something. "Married. His wife said once — made it clear, in fact — that she does not care about him." His jaw shifted, the muscle at the corner of it working once. "And then she did something that directly contradicts what she said."

Seven held the Alpha’s gaze across the table, his lips pressing together into a careful line. He looked at the man in front of him — at the rigid set of his shoulders, the hand pressed flat against the table, the deliberate evenness in his voice that took effort to maintain — and he weighed his options for exactly one second.

"Alpha," he said carefully. "I have known you for fifteen years."

A beat of quiet settled over the table.

"You have no friends."

The hall went very still at that.

The torches burned along the walls. The candle flame bent once and straightened. Neither of them moved.

Rodrigo blinked once. His hand closed firm and slow around the cup. "Have you lost your mind, Seven?"

"No, Alpha." Seven straightened in his seat immediately. "Not at all." He cleared his throat once, "What is your question, Alpha."

Rodrigo drew a slow breath through his nose and let it out. His jaw worked.

He didn’t know what his question was. He shut his eyes and her face came back, flushed red, her eyes wide and startled as she stared at him.

Seven cleared his throat carefully, bringing him back to the present. "Your friend’s wife," he said, measuring each word before he set it down, "must care about him."

Rodrigo’s eyes moved to him across the table, the line between his brows easing a fraction, ’’You think so?’’

He leaned back in his chair, an imperceptible smile curving the side of his mouth as he drummed his finger on the table.

"Although," Seven added, tilting his head slightly to one side.

Rodrigo’s hand stopped moving on the table.

"I cannot say for certain," Seven continued, "If she said clearly that she did not care, it is possible she meant it at the time she said it."

Rodrigo’s jaw tightened and his eyes went flat and the temperature in the room seemed to make a quiet decision to drop.

Seven cleared his throat for the third time. "But." He tilted his head to the other side, his mouth doing something that stopped just short of being a smile.

"It is equally possible that she meant that she did not care as much then as she does now."

"Do you have a death wish?" Rodrigo said.

Seven straightened in his chair. "No, Alpha."

"Then find a wife," Rodrigo said, looking away toward the window and reaching for the bottle again. "You are getting old and you have too much time to think. Retire for the night." he spat, a vein popping on his forehead.

"Goodnight, Alpha." Seven rose from his seat and bowed and turned for the door, moving across the dark hall with his hands clasped at his back, a grin on his mouth.

He had made it four steps when something crossed his peripheral vision and the back of his neck went tight. He frowned, turning slowly to the window.

The clouds had pulled back entirely. Every last one of them, clearing the sky in both directions as far as the glass would show, and the moon hung there full and white and open.

"Alpha."

Rodrigo was already on his feet, the cup abandoned as he crossed to the window and all the color on his face drained.

A howl tore out of the distant forest, long and fractured and before it had fully died away a scream followed from somewhere inside the gates.

Seven turned to him, his gaze dark.

The ritual...

Had failed.