“Are you going to headquarters?” I asked.

He brushed fingertips across the back of my hand, the sensation sending a shiver through me. “I’m going to continue enjoying my evening. The Pack will meet them if they choose, or they’ll ignore them. Either way, the AAM will learn a valuable lesson.”

TEN

When dinner was done, we drove to Humboldt Park in the SUV Alexei had picked up outside the loft, pulled to a stop on a snug residential street.

Both sides were lined with town houses, some old and distinguished pale stone, some sleek and modern glass and steel.

Connor walked to one situated firmly in the middle of those two styles. Three stories of red brick that sat stoically on the corner, each level with three narrow windows topped by rough-hewn stone. A line of dark green molding trimmed the roof, and there was a small plot of green in front, hemmed by a short black fence and accented by a low Japanese maple, its leaves already turning brilliantly red.

“Nice,” Lulu said, as we ascended the stairs to the front door. Connor unlocked it, and we followed him in.

Old, honeyed wood gleamed nearly everywhere: the floor; the stairs that led immediately to the second floor; and in long, horizontal beams that crossed the foyer. I peeked into the room on the left, found built-in bookshelves and a fireplace surrounded by dark green tile with a hint of sheen. A low velvet couch looked perfect for reading. It led to a dining room with more warm wood, more bookshelves, and a long pendant lamp of glass and iron.

“It’s like modern Frank Lloyd Wright,” Lulu said, giving it what I’d come to think of as her narrowed artist’s stare.

“It is,” I agreed. It was old-fashioned—missing the round edges and gleaming white surfaces that were popular now—but it was beautiful.

We walked through to an open kitchen where more tile gleamed above copper countertops. Modernity took over again with sleek appliances. A few steps led down to a sitting area nestled in a bay window nook that was open to the floors above it. An enormous artscreen hung on the side wall, blues and greens shifting and melding until they became waves crashing rhythmically against a rocky shoreline.

I put down my bag, walked to the bay window, looked out on the back of a grassy walled garden that appeared to flow down the side of the house, bounded by an ivy-covered brick wall. A glass and steel conservatory, total Victorian luxe, bumped out from the building into the yard.

“Damn,” Lulu said, standing beside me. “Seriously nice.”

It was a gorgeous house, but having the luxury of a yard in a tight Chicago neighborhood? Much less the conservatory, the bay atrium, the wood . . . And all of it elegant, but not fussy. Antique, but also modern. Someone had taken great care to make every detail in this house matter; they’d wanted it to last, and last it had.

Lulu turned to Connor while I goggled at the yard. “So, does the Pack own this place or what?” she asked.

“No,” Connor said. “It’s mine.”

I looked back at him. “Yours? Like, an investment property?”

“Mine, as in, I bought it. To live in.”

“You’re moving out of the Keene house?” I asked. The house was full of shifters—three generations of them.

“I moved out when we came back from Minnesota.”

It took a full minute before I was able to speak again. “You bought a house, and moved out of your family home, weeks ago.”

Lulu cleared her throat, reminding us we weren’t alone, then picked up the bag I’d dropped. “Alexei, do you know where the guest room is?”

Alexei nodded, gave Connor a look, and they made their escape through the house. Through the house Connor owned, with the honeyed wood and the huge yard and the conservatory.

“Is there a problem?” Connor asked when we were alone.

I felt a thousand emotions at once. Surprise that he’d left the home shared by three generations of his family, shocked that he had the financial chops to up and buy a town house in Chicago, anger and hurt that he hadn’t thought to share either of those things—huge, life-changing things—with me.

My parents hid the AAM’s interest in me. Connor shut me out.

Was there anyone left I could trust?

“Left home,” I repeated. “Moved out. Bought a house. Those are huge decisions, Connor. And you didn’t tell me about any of it.”

“I’m telling you now,” he said, pulling his screen from his pocket, putting it on the counter—and avoiding eye contact. “It’s not a big deal.”

“So completely rearranging your life is just an average Tuesday for you?”

He looked up at me. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

I glared at him. “Don’t minimize my feelings.”

“I’m not minimizing them. I’m trying to understand them.” He swore, put a hand on his chest. “It was time for me to get some space from the Pack. I need a place that’s mine. A place that’s away from the Pack. It was time,” he said again.

I could see in his face he didn’t realize he held the knife, and had just twisted it a little more. “And that’s it?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

I had to make a decision between flight or fight, between letting this go or pushing back. And letting this go wasn’t really my style.

“I want you to want to tell me when big things happen. Or when little things happen. I want you to need to tell me.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?”

He must have seen the hurt in my eyes, because his softened. “Look, this is not how I wanted this to go. But the sun’s about to rise, and I don’t want us to say things we’re going to regret. We can talk more at dusk.”

If I’d been human, that would have been unlikely. I’d seen Lulu bleary-eyed after a night of lovelorn sleeplessness. But the sun would put me under. On nights like this, that was a relief.

“Fine,” I said. “Where do I go?”

He looked at me for a long moment, jaw working while he considered the things he might say. “Second floor, second door on the right.”

I nodded at him, walked back toward the hallway and the stairs. Then I stopped. “Thank you for giving us a place to sleep tonight,” I said, without looking back.

And moved through silence up the stairs.

* * *

* * *

The second floor was more of the same. Gorgeous, warm, and an interesting mix of tech and antiques.

The door to the second bedroom was cracked, and I opened it, found Lulu sitting up in a large bed with an upholstered headboard in a tweedy gray fabric, gaze on her screen. I came in, closed the door behind me.

“You okay?” Lulu asked.

“Need a minute,” I said. I walked toward the door I assumed led to a bathroom, found a large closet. I growled, tried the other door. This was the bathroom, with blue-gray tile and a slate vanity. The shower was an angular tower of glass with more dark tile. It was oceanic, I thought, not unlike the video on the artscreen downstairs.

I washed up and changed into pajamas, and by the time I emerged into the bedroom again—and confirmed the windows were covered by thick blackout-lined drapes—I was ready to form coherent words. “He moved out of the Keene home and bought a damn town house.”

“From your expression, I don’t need to ask how you feel about it.”

“Angry. Hurt. Shocked. Confused.” I wished I could tell Lulu about my parents, about the things they’d hidden from me. But that would lead to uncomfortable questions about Testing and the reason for my fear.

“And what did Connor say?” she asked.

“That it was time, and he needed space from his family. Something that was his.”

“Okay,” she said, putting down her screen and crossing her legs. “That’s reasonable. Would have been more reasonable for him to tell his damn girlfriend about it.”

“Exactly,” I said and sat down on the edge of the bed. “What the hell, Lulu? We have all this shared history, and I thought we were going somewhere.” I turned to look at her. “Have I been reading this wrong?” The possibility reignited that ache beneath my ribs. And just pissed me off.

“If you read it wrong, then so did I.” She frowned, shook her head. “We didn’t read this wrong, Lis. He’s crazy about you. And he trusted you enough to take you to Minnesota. He relied on you to help the Pack.”

That was all true. But still . . . “He bought a house.”

“Yeah,” she said. She put her screen on the nightstand, lay back against the pillows. “It’s weird. You can’t fault the decor, though.” She looked up at the coffered (coffered!) ceiling. “He has surprisingly good taste for a man whose closet is mostly tight T-shirts and leather jackets.”

I snorted.

“I mean, his tile choices alone?” Lulu kissed the tips of her fingertips. “Very squee.”

I sat back, found the pillows almost irritatingly comfortable. “It’s just not normal not to tell your girlfriend that you’re literally living somewhere else.”

Lulu snorted. “When did that happen? Normality?”

I considered, came up with a possibility. “There was an entire week in Paris when it was too hot to move, even at night. People lay around, sat around, and couldn’t be bothered with pretty much anything. So there wasn’t any drama.”

“That wasn’t normal,” Lulu said. “It was a meteorological aberration. That’s what I’m saying—nothing is really ‘normal.’ It’s just an average, a shortcut to explain common things.” She paused. “Normal is a con created by people without imagination.”

“You’re a genius.”

“I know,” she said sleepily.

“Talk to him about it tomorrow,” she said. “After your mean wears off. Dawn is nearly here.”

I turned off the light, but stared at the ceiling, even as dawn threatened.