Page 77 of Research with Rivals
I’d even ignored my own warning that wants never quite panned out for me.
What did Ambrose think? Did he regret our time together?
I met his hazel gaze, and any doubt of his desire fled when the golden color of his wolf cascaded across them. He looked ravenous.
My thighs inadvertently squeezed together.
So, we wanted each other. We also both wanted the Vesten historian position. I rubbed my temple. Where did that leave us?
“Evelyn, are you listening to me?” Lord Arctos asked.
“I was not,” I confessed with little thought.
Carter laughed, and it sounded light, carefree. So different from the weight of our conversation yesterday. He had shared more than he needed to, and I still wasn’t sure I understood why. The secret of how the Vesten Point was chosen wasn’t information widely shared with anyone, let alone a half-fae library researcher.
The Vesten Court required a veil cat shifter. How long would it require one? Carter had the ability to travel between realms. What did that mean for me and my veil cat?
After our conversation, I had more questions than answers.
Part of me still wondered if Carter telling me meant he knew I was a veil cat, even though he’d said nothing about it directly. I was running out of chances to ask the Vesten Point about the animal. But the Vesten had taught me the lesson as a child: only discuss your shift with your family. Even with my shift somewhat under control and the Vesten Point bringing up the topic of shifter forms, I still couldn’t bring myself to ask. Especially since I now knew where my father was, it seemed most appropriate to ask him first. If he had no information, well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
Lord Arctos repeated himself, maybe for the third time, and finally pulled me from my thoughts. “That young male over there seems to be staring at you quite intently. It seems to have raised Ambrose’s hackles.”
I turned where Lord Arctos pointed. The male wasn’t young. Well, maybe he was by Lord Arctos’s standards. He was the male I’d run from yesterday. The male Ambrose had seemed to indicate was waiting for me to visit him. Apparently, he’d tired of waiting.
“Oh, Stephen,” Carter said, waving casually to the male.
I turned to face him. “You know him?”
Carter tilted his head. “Yes, he’s the one who inspired me to fill the position of Vesten historian. He needed his family tracked down after waking from the mist plague. I wasn’t able to do it myself with my other responsibilities.”
I choked on … nothing. The news was what I’d run from yesterday. When I’d looked at my father’s face, some part of me had known he was miserable—I’d been too scared to learn why. Now Carter had casually dropped the fact I’d been dreading.
My father had woken from the mist plague.
It couldn’t be right. I shook my head, even though it was exactly what Mom had said. My mind spun. How could he have gone to one of the villages that just happened to be taken by the mist plague? “Are you sure?”
“About what?” Carter asked.
“That he was a victim of the mist plague.”
Carter cleared his throat. “Yes, I woke him up.”
My cheeks flushed.
“Is everything alright, Evelyn?” The Vesten Point’s voice was distant, though, like the fire crackling through my veins was now burning too hot for me to hear anything else. Only one thing cut through the white noise. Ambrose.
“That’s what he told you,” I whispered. “That’s what you didn’t think I’d believe.”
He rested his hand lightly on my lower back, showing his support. “I didn’t know if you would believe it, but I thought he deserved a chance to try and tell you.”
I nodded, still in a daze. “Can you explain to Carter and Lord Arctos?” I might have understood why Ambrose didn’t want to tell me, but I still wasn’t sure I was ready to hear this from my father. It seemed like I had few options on the matter, though, with him standing on Vesten House property.
Slow steps took me away from the group and toward the male whom I might have judged entirely incorrectly. How could I have done so? I wasn’t rash; I had considered carefully where his deliveries on that fateful day would have taken him. In fact, when I’d first gained access to a map at the Sandrin Records Office, I’d plotted the whole thing out. The mist plague had not affected any of the cities he would have visited that day.
Maybe he deserves a chance to try and explain.
I probably wasn’t ready to hear it, but Mom deserved to hear whatever he would say. At the very least, I needed tocommunicate how to find her. I straightened my spine, like a warrior preparing for battle. I touched my braid, remembering what Ambrose had said only last night about it being my armor. The memory sent a flush of heat running through me as I crossed the lawn.
