Chapter 345 - Espe cannot lie

Esperanza stood right there in front of her parents, her brain going haywire like always, thoughts slamming into each other from every direction, piling up so fast she could barely breathe.

She’d been dead quiet for almost a full minute, long enough that her mom tilted her head and her dad’s face slid from patient to straight-up curious.

"Mom, Dad—" She sucked in a deep breath. "I wanna stay with Aunt Jasmine and Uncle Corvine."

Voren’s brow furrowed hard. He looked at her in that steady way he always did when shit didn’t add up, like he had forever to puzzle it out. "Why the sudden change, Espe?"

She pressed her lips tight together. For a second she looked just like Seraphine. That same stubborn little mouth thing that screamed she was picking every word like it might explode.

"Grandma would ask questions." Her eyes flicked sideways before snapping back. "Espe cannot lie."

The whole room went dead silent.

It hit everybody at once, what she really meant underneath those few words. If she stayed at the pack house, her grandparents would dig into everything. How she was holding up. Where she’d been. What life in the human world was really like.

And Esperanza, who had never once looked an elder in the eye and spun a single lie, would crumble in under five minutes. She’d spill about her mom. And Seraphine wasn’t gonna be at the pack house. She’d be off with Voren in some secret spot nobody was supposed to know about yet. The whole damn thing would blow up before they even got a plan together.

Jasmine caught Seraphine’s eye from across the room. "She has a point."

Corvine rubbed a hand across his jaw, already spinning through all the details in his head. A couple seconds ticked by, then he gave a slow nod.

"Don’t sweat it. I’ll make sure I’m home when Espe’s tutor shows up. Other times, she can tag along to the office. She’ll be right there where I can keep an eye on her." He met Voren’s gaze. "She’s safe. You have my word."

Seraphine’s heart twisted up in this wild, aching mess. She wanted nothing more than to yank her daughter into her arms and just hold on tight, watch a movie, order way too much food, pretend the rest of the world could burn for one damn night.

But she also knew deep down what she and Voren needed. They’d been circling this thing for days, getting so close their skin buzzed and then yanking back, and she knew they both had to stop running from the fire between them.

That thought alone sent a rush of heat blazing up the back of her neck. She turned a little so nobody would catch it and stared hard at a spot just past Corvine’s shoulder until the wave passed.

Still, she let Voren make the final call. He stared at Esperanza for a long, heavy moment. Then at Corvine. "Alright." His voice came out low and solid. "But I want to hear from you the second anything feels off, anything at all."

"You’ll be the first call." Corvine held up two fingers.

Seraphine felt her shoulders finally drop with relief. "And the samples," she added, almost like it just popped into her head. "Check the combs, the hairbrushes. You know what we need."

Corvine opened his mouth, about to crack some joke about the whole thing but then something else hit him. He grabbed Voren’s sleeve and pulled him a few steps away from the women.

"The wedding gown." He kept his voice down. "I wanted to talk to you about choosing the—"

"Already handled." Voren cut him off, no big deal, just pure fact. "I have a designer flying in from Paris in the next few days, right before the wedding day. I plan for us to return around the same time. Just a day to the wedding, and right after, we all leave to the Centenary pack. Since our parents would be there, Espe would be with them."

Corvine just stared at him, ready to tease him, but whatever joke Corvine had ready, died right in his throat.

He just clapped Voren once on the shoulder instead. Sometimes that said everything.

The goodbye stretched out way longer than any of them expected.

Esperanza clung to Seraphine so fiercely that Seraphine had to press her lips to the top of her head just to keep from completely falling apart.

Voren crouched down and murmured something to his daughter that nobody else caught—something that made her pull back, look at him with those bright blue eyes, and nod real slow and serious, like he’d just handed her something precious and heavy. Which maybe he had.

Then a driver was driving them to the chopper, the city lights streaking past the windows in a dizzy blur, and just like that the two of them were lifting off, New York spreading out below them like a glittering spill of stars.

Seraphine crashed hard into sleep before they’d even cleared the outer boroughs.

It crept over her slow, the way exhaustion finally wins when you’ve been running on pure willpower and fumes for way too long. Her head found Voren’s shoulder like it had always belonged right there, all the tight strain melted out of her face, and she just... let go.

Voren stayed wide awake. He watched the dark landscape roll by underneath for a while, those scattered clusters of lights in the distance, the huge empty stretches in between.

Then he noticed how she snuggled closer. Instantly, he slipped out of his jacket without making a sound. Draped it over her real careful, like she was the most fragile thing in the world and he couldn’t risk waking her.

Then he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her in tight, her back nestled against his side, her breathing deep and steady.

He didn’t even try to sleep. He just sat there with her, letting the hours slip away while his heart pounded with everything they were heading toward.

"Are we close?"

Seraphine’s voice came out all thick and sleepy, still wrapped up in a dream. A big yawn stretched her jaw and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, blinking out at the window.

Something felt different about the darkness outside. It wasn’t that flat, empty black of open sky anymore. There was texture to it now—shadowy shapes she couldn’t quite grab, and way up ahead, a cluster of lights that seemed to climb instead of spread.

"You woke up right on time." The corner of Voren’s mouth curved. "We’re here. Just watch."

Seraphine leaned in closer to the window, her pulse kicking up. The chopper was dropping down, but not toward flat ground. The lights were coming from below them, no, from inside something. Like the mountain itself was alive and glowing.

"We’re landing on top of the pack," Voren said, his voice dropping low and reverent, like stepping into a cathedral. "You’ve heard the stories, I’m sure. That the Grimroot pack was built inside a rock."