Chapter 43: You’re Staring

Naya woke with the memory of the night before still humming beneath her skin, the warmth of Ronan’s hands, the way he’d pulled back with such deliberate restraint that it had somehow felt more intimate than if he hadn’t stopped at all.

She wasn’t embarrassed, exactly. She was unsettled by how badly she’d wanted him to keep going.

At breakfast, Ronan was already seated, and neither of them seemed to know how to behave normally. He glanced at her, then away, then back again, the silence stretching longer than usual.

"You’re staring," he said finally.

"You’re avoiding looking at me."

"Because when I do," he admitted, "I remember last night."

The tension returned instantly, thick enough that neither of them touched their food for a long moment.

Darius arrived shortly after, sparing them both from having to figure out what came next. He laid out the latest findings from the investigation, his expression grim.

"The authorization that started the search for Naya originated from Ripley territory," he said. "But the seal used belonged to someone with royal authority."

Naya sat up straighter. "That means someone in my own family had access to a command that powerful?"

"It appears that way," Darius said.

Ronan told him to keep the finding restricted for now, and once Darius had left, Naya sat with the weight of it settling deeper than anything they’d uncovered so far. Her family’s secrets weren’t simply tangled up with the crown. They ran through it.

"I want to go back to the estate," she said. "I want to search my childhood home myself."

"Godric already knows we’re investigating," Ronan said. "Going there again puts you directly in front of someone who has clearly been hiding this for years."

"The house may hold answers nobody else can find," Naya argued. "I know where to look. I grew up there."

"I’ll send people to search it."

"No," Naya said firmly. "I don’t want another investigation happening around me while I wait somewhere else for results. I want to be there."

Ronan studied her for a long moment before finally relenting. "Then I’m coming with you."

"You’re being protective again," she pointed out.

"I’m not protecting you from the truth," he said. "I’m making sure you survive finding it."

Before they could leave, Kael arrived, characteristically breezing into the room without waiting for permission.

"Heard you two are running off together again," he said, grinning. "Should I be concerned my brother’s turning into someone who actually enjoys traveling?"

"We have business in Ripley territory," Ronan said.

"Sure you do," Kael said, glancing between them with obvious amusement. He turned to Naya. "Does he still growl at anyone who stands too close to you, or has that improved?"

Naya laughed despite herself. "It’s improved. Slightly."

"I don’t growl," Ronan said.

"You absolutely growl," Kael said, delighted. "It’s very charming, in a possessive-wolf sort of way."

Ronan shot him a look that only made Kael laugh harder, and Naya found herself enjoying the sight of Ronan flustered by something as simple as his own brother’s teasing.

The journey to Ripley territory felt different than it had the first time. Naya and Ronan sat closer together in the carriage without discussing it, and at one point their hands brushed against each other on the seat between them. Neither pulled away.

"Do you regret stopping last night?" Naya asked.

"No," Ronan said.

"What would have happened if you hadn’t?"

He looked at her, something warm flickering behind his eyes. "Then we’d be having a very different conversation this morning."

Naya smiled, and Ronan reached over and took her hand properly this time, lacing his fingers through hers. It was such a small thing, but it settled something between them that felt larger than the gesture itself, a quiet acknowledgment neither of them needed to explain.

They arrived at the estate, and Naya led him straight to her childhood bedroom, still exactly as she’d left it days before. She began searching through old belongings, memories surfacing again with every drawer she opened.

Ronan noticed something near the door, faint scratches worn into the wood along the inside frame.

"What are these from?" he asked.

Naya crossed over and studied them, an uncomfortable realization settling in. "The door used to lock from the outside," she said slowly. "I always thought it was for my safety."

"During the full moon phases you mentioned before."

"Yes." She traced the marks with her fingers. "I never questioned it as a child. Now I wonder whether they were protecting me from something, or keeping something contained."

They searched together, methodical and quiet, until Naya’s hand found a loose floorboard she remembered from years ago. Beneath it sat old childhood drawings, a few documents that meant nothing on their own, and a sealed envelope tucked carefully at the bottom.

Her own name was written across the front in handwriting she recognized instantly.

Marissa’s.

"It’s old," Naya said, turning it over in her hands. "This is from when I was very young."

She hesitated, the weight of it heavier than its size suggested. Ronan didn’t push her to open it, simply waited beside her, present without pressure.

Finally, she broke the seal.

If you’re reading this, then your father failed to keep you away from the truth.

Naya’s hands began to shake. Ronan moved closer, close enough to offer support without taking the letter from her, letting her read it at her own pace.

The letter explained, in Marissa’s careful handwriting, that she hadn’t been able to tell Naya the truth while Godric remained alive and in control of what she was permitted to know. She wrote that she’d hidden this letter years ago, hoping that someday, somehow, Naya might find it on her own, in a moment when Marissa herself couldn’t risk speaking the words aloud.

Naya’s eyes moved to the final line, and her breath caught.

You were never supposed to be raised as a Ripley.

She looked up at Ronan, the words settling over her with a weight she hadn’t fully braced herself for.

Before she could read any further, footsteps sounded outside the bedroom door, heavy and unmistakable.

"Naya?"

Godric’s voice.

She folded the letter quickly, tucking it against her chest as Ronan shifted subtly beside her, positioning himself closer without making it obvious.

The door opened.

Godric’s eyes went straight to the envelope in her hands, and something shifted across his face immediately, an expression Naya had never once seen from her father in her entire life.

Panic.

"Where did you find that?" he demanded, his voice sharper than she’d ever heard it.