Grace of a Wolf by Lenaleia

Chapter 87: Lyre: Embraced (?)

LYRE

There’s a special joy that comes from watching someone who once stood tall crumble into terrified submission. Owen—all six-foot-something of Order-aligned angelic muscle—keeps flinching whenever I so much as breathe in his direction. It’s adorable, really.

He’s young. Strangely young. Maybe mid-twenties at best. Seems odd, considering his bloodline, but I’m not about to ask. Knowing means involving, and involving means work.

No, thank you.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I fish it out while maintaining eye contact with Owen, just to watch him swallow nervously. Poor thing. I’d only turned him into a toad for a few seconds. Just enough to make sure he didn’t run away.

Didn’t think it would bother him this much, but it is a delightful bonus.

The text on my screen makes me roll my eyes.

[CAINE: Why aren’t you answering your phone? This is just an empty building. Where are you??]

The digital equivalent of a wolf’s howl.

Sighing, I turn to Owen. "Do they need a key?"

He nods stiffly. "Yes."

"Better go let them in before His Royal Broodiness tears this place apart with his bare hands."

"This isn’t—" He stops himself and blows out a heavy breath. "Okay."

Jack-Eye straightens. "I’ll go with you."

Of course he will. Any excuse to get away from the big bad witch who turned his new friend into an amphibian. Wolves are so predictable. So boring. Take away their agency once and they lose their ability to function.

Owen hesitates, looking from me to Grace and back again.

"Don’t worry," I tell him with my sweetest smile. "We’re best friends. Right, Grace?"

The angel-descendant looks at Grace, his silver eyes troubled. "Will you be—"

interrupts, her cheeks flushing pink as she

press a hand to my chest, mock-offended. "Just a friend? After everything we’ve been

reaches toward me. "Oh no, I didn’t mean—I

you." I

tension melting away as she exhales a long breath. "That wasn’t funny," she mumbles, but there’s no heat behind her words. A small smile tugs at the corner

innocence, wrapped in a world determined to grow her into a fate too large for her dainty

threads of

surrounded by

best fates usually are. The Divinity call it balance,

can’t

at me before following Owen out. At least he has some spice to his fear. Doesn’t like

across the floor, her eyes wide. "You turned him into a

?"

her with an easy smile. "I wanted to talk to him, and it’s the

why Jack-Eye is afraid of you

just has good instincts. Unlike your mate, who bulldozes through life with all the subtlety of a freight

pink thing again. "He’s

well past that particular denial,

it, hands fidgeting in her lap. Her nervous energy fills the space between us—anticipation and anxiety in equal measure. It’s

Caine really upset?" she asks

looking for you." I pat her knee. "In his own

plays at the corners of her mouth, and I marvel at how someone so genuinely good could end up bound to a creature like Caine. The universe has a

add, "he might be a bit... intense

smile falters. "Intense

you can’t breathe’ kind of intense. After what happened last

"Oh."

to have to explain to the hospital staff why you’re back in a coma." Though, I’m sure Caine will never let her out of his sight

to be

from the hallway—heavy footsteps and voices, one deep and rumbling with barely contained

Caine.

her hair. It’s so painfully obvious how she feels, and I can’t help but sigh. All that

mating bond’s peculiar sense of matchmaking. Though, Grace has her own ability to emulate an emotional rock, so I suppose they are

louder, and then he’s there—the Lycan King himself, filling the doorway with his massive frame, eyes locked