Page 38 of Research with Rivals
I must have passed out. Carefully, I pushed myself to a seated position. The soft and warm comfort in which I had found myself moments earlier was, as the young girl described, Ambrose’s bed.
It was large, but it looked like I’d taken up the entirety of the space. The bedroom was a bit sparse, but that didn’t surprise me for Ambrose. The bedside table held a single book. The rest of the room featured light, neutral colors, mostly grays and whites. It reminded me of his wolf.
“Mom says sometimes when we don’t feel well, we’re just hungry.”
This kitchen conversation was becoming increasingly confusing. Who was this girl? Ambrose couldn’t possibly have a child, could he? My cheeks heated as I remembered how I’d reacted to his presence in the clearing—the worst possible time for attraction to strike.
“Sasha,” his voice was so gentle. I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard him use that tone before. “Mom is right, but in this case, my friend just needed rest.”
Now I felt like I was intruding. I pushed myself out of the bed and tried to decide if I should make noise to alert them that I was awake.
“I’m going to help Timothy get ready. Will you be over with breakfast soon?” Sasha must have accepted his words as true. However, she didn’t sound old enough to be wandering the streets by herself. She already knew I was here. I might as well make myself known so that Ambrose could go with her.
I cleared my throat as I took careful steps out of the room and down the hallway. Thankfully, even in the state I was in last night, I’d shifted back to my half-fae form fully clothed.Although I questioned my self-preservation instinct, since I’d shifted in front of Ambrose Yarrow.
I paused my steps as I considered what that meant.
He knew I could shift.
That isn’t that bad. I knew he didn’t believe my lies yesterday.
He knew I couldn’t control my shift. That much had been obvious.
He also knew I was a veil cat shifter.
How would he use this information against me? Why had he brought me here?
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back as everything else rushed in. We were still competing for the position of Vesten historian. We were bound by blood magic—a mistake I’d made. I was supposed to have worked on the solution to that particular problem last night. Instead … I glanced around … this had happened.
I needed to get to the library. Sasha spoke of breakfast. It must be morning.
The deep breath I pulled in through my nose stood no chance of calming me with all of this racing through my mind, but I attempted it anyway.
I scanned the kitchen and living space as I exited the hallway. The little girl, Sasha, looked just like Ambrose. Her hair was a brighter red than his auburn, but they had matching aquiline noses and full lips.
“She’s awake!” Sasha jumped for joy at my arrival. I was taken aback, having never been shown such enthusiasm for my simply existing.
Ambrose met and held my gaze. It might have been a trick of my eyes, but he seemed to move a little slower than he had moments before—as if afraid to spook me if he did something too fast.
He stood over a stove, a spatula primed in his hand over an iron skillet. A white mark of what I could only assume was flour smudged the side of his nose and splattered across the light blue apron he wore. It was oddly adorable.
That couldn’t be right. My spine snapped straight as I tried to pull myself together. I shouldn’t ogle Ambrose Yarrow on a typical day, for a whole host of reasons. If he also was partnered and had a child, that was an entirely different side of the coin I didn’t need to deal with.
“Good … morning,” I said hesitantly.
His hazel eyes hadn’t left mine. He nodded in reassurance, even if I wasn’t sure what he was reassuring me about. That it was alright that I had exposed my secret to him? That I was intruding on his family’s morning?
“Good morning, Evelyn,” he said.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up,” Sasha said, making sure we didn’t forget about her, even though the way Ambrose snared my attention made that a challenge.
I can look away at any time.
Reminding myself of that fact didn’t seem to help. My veil cat felt like a house cat curled up in front of a fire, which was the exact opposite of how my half-fae body was processing this experience. There was a rightness to this place, to my proximity to Ambrose and the unexpected domesticity of this moment. It felt warm, like I’d popped one of those hard red candies Ambrose had shared on the ferry yesterday.
Except I hadn’t.
Reason slid back in. These must be symptoms of the blood magic. It wanted us to grow together. I needed to get to the library to figure out how to break it.
