I looked back at him, smiled. “No, but I can see it with my eyeballs.”
“Hilarious.” He looked at least faintly amused.
“Let us know what you find,” Connor told Alexei. “And be careful.”
“Always,” Alexei said, then pulled a peppermint from his pocket, unwrapped it, popped it into his mouth. And disappeared into the woods.
***
Back at the cabin, I organized my gear in the bedroom. When I came back into the living room, I found Connor had arranged ablanket and pillow on the couch, but I was alone in the cabin. He came in through the front door a moment later.
“I was just closing the shutters,” he said, and locked the door behind him.
“You sure you’ll be okay on the couch?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve also slept in a tent in the mountains. Rockies, not Pyrenees, but I imagine sleeping on rock in a freezing wind is pretty much the same all over the world.”
“Our tragedies bring us together,” I said.
He snorted, took off his watch, placed it on the kitchen counter, along with the contents of his pockets, then toed off his boots.
“You were good with Beth.”
He looked up, brows lifted.
“You handled her well, I mean. You were thoughtful and polite, and you worked to put her at ease. But you did it with authority.”
“Not bad for a former punk.”
I bit back a smile. “You still have some punk in you.”
“Will I get in trouble if I call you a brat again?”
“Yes. There were two of them—the things that attacked her. She didn’t realize it, but there would’ve had to be at least two. One to hit her, one still moving. Because the one that hit her was behind her.”
“That’s my thinking, yeah.”
Silence fell.
“Does it bother you?” I asked, breaking it.
“Does what bother me?”
“The fact that conversation stops when shifters see you.”
He went still, watched me for a quiet moment. “Yes. It’s part of who I am. Part of who I want to be. But it makes me...”
“Separate,” I said, and he nodded.
“I think we’ve switched positions,” I said. “You’ve always been the prince, but when you were a kid, it didn’t really matter.Gabriel was in control, and that was that. But you’re older now. You’ve, I guess, come into your power. People are curious about you. Maybe wary of you. And wondering if you’re the next Apex. The next leader of the Pack.”
“Yeah,” he said. “They see me for what I might be. Some for who I actually am—they’re the good ones. But most for what I might be able to do in the future. The possibility I can make things better or worse for them.”
I nodded, shifted my gaze to the window and the dark trees outlined beyond it. “For me, it’s the opposite. When I was a kid, I was a novelty. The new thing. The first thing. There was a little of that when I came back from Paris, but now the novelty’s somewhat worn off because I’m a vampire with a real job. That’s not nearly as interesting, at least for humans. But I’m still... separate. I know how that feels.”
“Yeah, I imagine you do.”
I studied him. “You know, you’ve changed a lot. Grown up a lot. It’s strange to witness. But good.”