KEISHA’S POV

The office was quieter than it had been all week.

I sat at my desk and worked through the assignments in my queue with more focus than I had been capable of since the last few days.

There were no urgent correspondence logs to process, no crisis meetings to prepare notes for, just the regular steady work of a communications office on a normal day.

I finished the first task, submitted it and moved to the second. When the manager came through to review everythingI had completed, there were no errors. No corrections needed.

Just perfect.

I felt something bloom slightly in my chest.

By mid morning I had cleared my actual queue so I started going through the archived logs that were sitting in the back corner, the ones I wasn’t asked to sort but that needed sorting regardless. I pulled them out systematically and reorganised them.

The truth? I was doing all this because I didn’t want to think about Nadias’ question. She asked when last I had a heat. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

And I hadn’t answered her.

She had waited for about thirty seconds before she then handed me a glass of water and a damp cloth and left me alone and we hadn’t spoken about it since. Which meant she was waiting for me to bring it up. Which meant she had already done the maths and was just being patient about it.

Goddess.

I pulled another stack of logs toward me and started reorganising them with more focus than they probably deserved.

The manager appeared at mid morning looking harried. She was nagging Evelyn, the colleague who had helped me with the filing earlier in the week, about a printing job that apparently should have been submitted three days ago.

"I gave you the assignment Monday." The manager was saying. "It’s now Wednesday. This is not complicated work, Evelyn. It should have been done."

Evelyn looked like she wanted to say something and decided against it, her gaze fixed on anything but Mrs Velaris.

After a while, the manager stalked out.

I waited about two minutes, then I stood and walked over to Evelyn’s desk.

"What’s the printing job?" I asked.

She looked up, surprised. "You don’t have to—"

"I know." I said. "What is it?"

She explained it to me — it was a quarterly report that needed to be formatted and printed in a specific layout for distribution to the regional packs. I had done similar work a hundred times. It would take maybe an hour if I focused.

"Go get it submitted." I nodded. "I’ll do the rest of the formatting and you can print it when you get back."

"Keisha you really don’t—"

"I’m doing it." I smiled. "Go."

She looked grateful and slightly guilty in equal measure before she disappeared and I sat down at her desk, pulled the document up and got to work. The formatting was straightforward, just needed the headers adjusted and the page breaks fixed, and by the time Evelyn came back I had most of it done and we finished it together in twenty minutes and she took it off to print while I went back to my own desk.

Lunch was quiet thankfully.

I sat at my desk with the container Nadia had left in my fridge from last night, picked at it slowly while I pulled up my phone and stared at Lyra’s contact information for probably the hundredth time today.

I could call her.

She might be busy though. She had said work was hectic when we spoke last week. I didn’t want to disturb her, didn’t want to be the person who always needed something or had something to process. I could just— wait. Call her later when things were clearer. When I had actually confirmed what I thought was happening instead of just suspecting it based on one incident and one question from Nadia.

My thumb hovered over the dial button.

I was still deciding when Evelyn appeared at my desk with a container and a drink.

"Thank you." She said simply. "For helping me this morning. I know you didn’t have to."

I smiled at her. "It’s fine. Really."

"Still." She set the container down. "I brought you lunch. As a thank you."

I opened my mouth to say I already had lunch and then I looked at the container and thought about Nadia’s careful face. For a second, I thought about confirmation and thought about not living in this strange limbo of not knowing.

Nothing would happen if I confirmed.

"Thank you." I smiled as I took the container.

Evelyn smiled and went back to her desk. I opened it and looked at what was inside — rice, vegetables, and fish. Becca’s cooking again, from the smell of it. The same fish that had made me violently ill last night.

I looked at it, took a breath and picked up a piece of the fish with my fork and put it in my mouth.

I chewed slowly and swallowed, waiting.

Nothing happened.

My stomach didn’t turn. My body didn’t rebel. Nothing came back up. I just felt fine. Normal.

Slowly, I took another piece.

Same result.

I exhaled slowly and felt something loosen in my chest because if the fish wasn’t the problem then it had just been nerves or stress or something temporary and Nadia’s question in the bathroom had just been Nadia being Nadia, always jumping to the most dramatic conclusion possible.

With a smile, I relaxed slightly and took another bite and was just starting to feel actually settled when I looked up toward the door and my throat tightened.

Riven was standing there.

He was in the doorway of the communications office in full view of everyone and his eyes were fixed directly on me.

He was watching me eat with an expression on his face that I couldn’t quite read but that made my stomach do a complicated flip that had nothing to do with the fish.

Oh fuck.

I choked.

Actually choked.

I coughed and tried to swallow and coughed again while my eyes watered and Sera who was sitting three desks over looked over with alarm and half stood like she was about to come help me but I held up my hand to tell her I was fine even though I was absolutely not fine because Riven was still standing in the doorway and now he was walking into the office toward my desk.

You have to be kidding me.

I coughed one more time, cleared my throat and looked at him.

He stopped at my desk, standing there looking down at me with his hands in his pockets and that expression still on his face.

"Hi." He said simply.

I swallowed. "Hello."

"Can I have a minute?" He asked. "To talk."

I looked around the office. Every single person was pretending very hard not to be listening while absolutely listening.

Sera had sat back down but her eyes kept sliding toward us. The manager’s assistant was typing very loudly. Even Pren had looked up from whatever he was doing.

"Sure." I said. Because saying no would have caused more of a scene and Riven would have just stood there waiting anyway.

I stood and followed him outside.

The afternoon air hit my face and I blinked against the brightness and waited for him to say whatever he had come to say.

"I wanted to apologise." He said. "On behalf of Mara."

I looked at him. "For what?"

"For how she spoke to you." He said. "In the corridor. She was rude and I didn’t— I didn’t know she was going to do that until after, when I overheard some bits and by then you were gone."

Right.

I said nothing.

"She’s dealing with some family stuff right now." He said. "Personal things. It’s not an excuse but it’s context. She’s not usually like that."

"I don’t care." I said simply. "Riven. I don’t care about Mara or her family stuff or any of it. That’s not my business and it’s not my problem."

He looked at me. "I know. I just wanted you to know that she’s not— she’s a good person. She just had a moment."

"Okay." I frowned. "Thank you for letting me know."

I turned to go back inside.

"Keisha—" He reached for my arm.

"No." I said. I didn’t pull away but I also didn’t turn back. "We’re not having a conversation. You said what you came to say. I heard it. We’re done."

Before he could say anything again, I went back inside.

The office went very quiet when I walked back to my desk. Everyone suddenly very focused on their own work.

I sat down, picked up my fork and the piece of fish I had left on my plate and put it in my mouth.

But I could feel their gazes and I tried to pretend that every single person in this office wasn’t dying to ask me questions.

I made it about thirty seconds.

Sera stood and came over to my desk followed immediately by two other colleagues.

They all crowded around me and I felt the panic of being surrounded start creeping up my spine.

"Are you okay?" Sera asked.

"Is he really the Alpha from Coldridge?" The assistant asked.

"How do you know him?" The third colleague asked. "You’ve never mentioned—"

"We should all give Keisha some space." Evelyn’s voice came from somewhere to my left.

She was standing and looking at the three colleagues with a very pointed expression and she was gesturing for them to step back.

"She’s clearly uncomfortable." Evelyn said firmly. "So if you could all return to your desks and mind your own business that would be great."

The three colleagues looked sheepish and dispersed and Evelyn sat back down in her own chair and went back to work like nothing had happened but I finally felt like I could breathe.

I felt something warm move through me because apparently I had made an actual friend in this office and she had just saved me from a very awkward interrogation.

I mouthed thank you at her.

She gave me a small smile and a nod before she went back to her screen and I sat there with my food still mostly untouched.

A nagging question sat at the back of my mind.

What was Riven thinking?