His eyes glimmer with equal parts irritation and amusement. "Practical."
Elias appears behind Felix, looking around with that analytical gaze. "Does she always have this much energy after a six-hour flight?"
"You have no idea," Felix says dryly. "This is her calm."
I'm already up and exploring again, opening drawers, checking closets, cataloging everything. The closet has built-in organizers that make my fingers itch to fill them. The bathroom has a shower with multiple heads and a bench that basically makes it a sauna.
I find myself in the walk-in closet again, running my hands over the smooth wood, imagining how soft blankets would look draped over the built-in bench. Some pillows from the bed, maybe those throws I saw downstairs, and it would make a perfect little?—
Nest.
The word slams into me like a truck in a fucking portal fantasy.
I'm thinking about nesting. Here. In their space.
"Fuck," I whisper, snatching my hand back like the wood burned me.
"You okay?" Felix's voice drifts from the bedroom.
"Fine!" I call back, too bright, too fast. "Just plotting where to hide weapons!"
I force myself to walk out of the closet, to stop touching things, to stop imagining how comfortable and safe it would be to build a little sanctuary in this beautiful prison.
Because that's what this is, no matter how pretty. A prison. A cage.
Even if it's starting to feel like something else entirely.
Chapter
Thirty
ARCHER
The bedding in this obscenely expensive room feels like fucking clouds, but I can't settle. My body's exhausted from the move, from watching our backs during transport, from existing in a constant state of hypervigilance that's become my default setting. But my mind won't shut the fuck off.
I've unpacked exactly three things. My emotional support gun, a change of clothes, and the bottle of bourbon I liberated from the bar downstairs.
The room's too quiet. Too perfect. Like something out of those home design magazines my mom used to?—
Nope. Not going down that road tonight.
I need to move. Need to do something with my hands that isn't jerking off to thoughts of our omegas or punching another hole in expensive drywall. So I do what any reasonable person would do at two in the afternoon in a new place. I pretend to organize shit I don't own.
The hallway stretches ahead like a invitation to bad decisions. I'm just checking the layout, I tell myself. Security assessment. Definitely not hoping to accidentally run into?—
Voices drift from the living room. Soft, intimate. The kind of sounds that make my chest do that stupid clenching thing it's been doing since we found them.
I edge closer, telling myself I'm just passing through. Just need to check if the... fucking... windows are secure or some bullshit excuse my brain's too fried to properly manufacture.
The scene that greets me stops me dead in my tracks.
Juniper's curled against Felix on the massive sectional like a cat that's found the perfect sunbeam. Her head rests on his chest, brown hair spilling across him like silk, and he's reading to her from what looks like one of those fantasy novels with the covers that promise dragons and sexual tension.
His voice is different when he reads. Softer. The sharp edges that usually armor every word smoothed down to something almost tender. And Juniper... fuck, she looks content. Actually content, not the manic energy or defensive sarcasm she usually wears like battle armor.
"'The knight knew he was walking into a trap,'" Felix reads, his fingers absently playing with her hair, "'but love makes fools of even the wisest men.'"
Juniper snorts. "Love makes everyone stupid. That's why it's dangerous."
