Alpha Terrell's POV
I watched her go back under.
The sleep that took her this time was different - softer, more like rest. Her breathing evened out. The small tension that had lived in her face for seven days released itself, degree by degree, until she looked like a person sleeping rather than a person suspended.
She looked like herself.
I sat with that for a moment.
Then I carefully, slowly, lifted her head from my lap and transferred it to the pillow. She didn't stir. I straightened the covers. I stood.
I looked at her one last time.
Merrick. What happened.
I turned and walked out.
Merrick's study was at the end of the east corridor - a room I had always found faintly irritating in its elegance, everything arranged with the same deliberate eye he applied to his clothing and his manner and apparently his marriage.
He was at the desk when I came in, something spread out in front of him that he was reading with focus.
He looked up.
Read my face.
