Lucien's expression did not change much when he looked down at Keizu, but the air around him shifted all the same.
It was a subtle thing, the kind only someone standing very near could notice. The slight narrowing of the eyes. The tension at the jaw. The stillness that became sharper rather than calmer.
Evelyn had begun to understand that Lucien Blackthorne did not react like ordinary men. He did not gasp, or step back, or show surprise in easy ways. Instead, his entire body seemed to lock into a different state of awareness, as though the world had quietly become a battlefield.
Keizu remained seated against the wall, pale and exhausted, but he did not look frightened of Lucien. That alone was startling. Everyone else in the manor treated the Alpha with careful respect, or fear, or both. This boy -- this hidden figure beneath the greenhouse -- looked at him with the weary irritation of someone who had already expected to be found and was annoyed by how long it had taken.
