TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 165

One hundred and sixty five

EVANGELINE POV

Franklin returned with the report in his hand and that look he always wore when something didn’t sit right with him. It wasn’t suspicion anymore. It was a lingering focus, even when there was nothing left to find.

“The lab is done with the first pass,” he said.

Clean, the report said. No toxicity markers. Nothing that would hold up to scrutiny.

I smiled inwardly and poured myself a glass of water.

“That’s good,” I said. “At least that puts one thing to rest.”

Franklin’s gaze was on Cameron. “No, it doesn’t. I don’t trust Desmond, and I strongly believe he has access.”

“Belief is not the same as proof,” Cameron said. “And if he wanted to make a move, it wouldn’t look like this.”

Silence followed that.

Franklin didn’t agree, but he stepped back from it. I watched the shift and kept my face neutral.

The herbs had done exactly what they were meant to do. Nothing.

What I had planted in that corner of the narrative was a trail for Franklin to chase, and it would keep his attention occupied.

He was thorough, I would give him that. He had documented everything, cross-referenced suppliers, and sent samples to two separate labs. Days of careful work, all of it pointed at nothing.

I told Desmond to make sure our versions of events would not contradict each other. I had kept it short and specific: if Cameron or anyone else ever raises your name in connection with my health, look confused. Say that my wellbeing has nothing to do with you. Say you would never involve yourself in something like that because you’re not that careless. Then say nothing else.

Desmond was a fool, but he understood the value of restraint when it suited him.

Franklin needed something to chase. Something that would keep his attention just off target. The more he circled Desmond, the less he would look at me.

He picked up the report again, scanning it as if it might change the second time.

“I’ll keep digging,” he said.

Cameron shrugged. I recognized the particular blindness. Cameron was sharp in many ways. In this one specific way, he was not.

He had dismissed Desmond with the certainty of someone who had assessed a threat and found it beneath him. He was wrong. But the wrongness had a logic to it that almost made it forgivable.

The problem was Franklin.

Franklin didn’t have that gap. I watched him from across the room and thought about what it would mean, after dominion, to not have to feel his eyes on my back every time I moved through a space.

He would be the first person I’d get rid of.

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Franklin on his own was manageable. But Franklin and Nadia moving in the same direction, with the same suspicion, that was a different problem.

I had seen the way she had started watching me, and I needed to interrupt that.

I let my gaze drift toward Cameron. He looked tired. There was a delay in him now. He paused longer than usual before responding, flipped through the same page twice before moving on.

He didn’t notice it yet, but Franklin did.

“I’m going to lie down for a bit,” Cameron said, pushing the reports aside.

Franklin frowned. “You have another meeting in an hour.”

“I’ll be there,” Cameron replied, though he didn’t sound convinced himself.

He stood, slower than usual, and left the room.

Franklin watched him go, then turned to me.

“You should still be careful with anything you take,” he said.

“I always am,” I replied.

He held my gaze for a moment longer, then left.

He wasn’t sure. That was the best place to keep him.

The next morning, I walked into Cameron’s room and found him still in bed at seven, which he would have considered inexcusable in himself days ago. He had opened his eyes when I entered and looked at me without fully registering me.

“You’re not going for the meeting?” I asked.

He groaned into his pillow. “I will. I just need a minute.”

“You’ve never needed a minute before.”

He let out a breath. “I’ll be fine.”

I moved closer, letting my voice soften. “Maybe you’ve been pushing too hard.”

“Maybe,” he said, though it sounded more like he didn’t care to argue.

My phone rang. I glanced at the screen and answered immediately, not stepping away yet.

“Mom,” I said lightly. “How’s the festival?”

She gave me the kind of answer designed for any passing ear nearby.

“That’s good. I wish I could have been there.”

“You’ll attend next year,” she replied.

We spoke a little longer, nothing important that would raise attention. Cameron closed his eyes while we talked, his breathing steady, slipping in and out.

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Then I stepped out of the room. When I had put enough distance between myself and Cameron’s room, I lowered my voice.

“What’s the plan, Mom?”

There was a pause on the line. “You go first.”

“He’s slowing,” I said. “More than usual. He stayed in bed this morning and is drifting during the day.”

“That’s expected,” she replied. “His perception is narrowing. He’s looking inward now, trying to diagnose himself.”

I leaned against the wall, lowering my voice. “How long before it becomes noticeable?”

“It already is,” she said. “They just haven’t suspected it.”

“And Lisa?”

“She won’t be returning immediately,” my mother said. “Movement will be restricted. Routes are being adjusted By the time it becomes clear, it will already be in effect.”

My heart lifted.

“Don’t let that window close carelessly.” Her voice didn’t change in pitch, but I heard the sharp instruction underneath it.

“The border restriction I’ve put in place will hold for at least 48 hours. Communication through the eastern corridor is already disrupted, enough interference to keep her hostage.”

“I’ll continue on my end,” I said.

“You should,” she replied. “Don’t fall behind now. Strip him of active hours. Let the people around him begin to fill in his gaps.”

After we ended the call, I stood in the corridor and thought about Lisa.

Every time she had been physically present, there was a settling that happened in Cameron. We learned that from the specific frequency of his responses.

Around her, something in him sharpened in a way I could not replicate.

She stabilized him. And the closer the dominion preparation came, the more dangerous that stabilization was.

Even more scary was that they could be fated.

I thought about my father, not with grief but with the recognition that had always been my lens for understanding my family.

He moved through our house the way furniture moves. My mother spoke and he responded. She decided and he obeyed. He never asked why.

I had grown up watching dominion from the inside, and from that angle it had looked like ordinary family life. A man who loved his wife. A woman who knew her own mind. The difference only became visible when you looked at what he never did. He never led. He never surprised her. He never disagreed.

That was what I was building.

I needed ten days. 1

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I despised the surrogacy now, despite it being my decision to approve it, just to please Cameron’s council, a decoy child to satisfy the demand for an heir before the next winter.

Now that same mistake had come to bite me.

Cameron made it downstairs later, but he wasn’t fully present.

He sat at the head of the table, listening, and responding when needed.

“What was the last figure?” he asked at one point.

Franklin answered, then paused. “I already said it.”

Cameron nodded. “Right.”

It happened again later.

And again.

Each time small enough to ignore. Together, not so small.

“You should get some medication,” Franklin said.

Cameron looked at him. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Franklin replied. “You’re missing things. There’s a council meeting tomorrow. You can’t afford this.”

“He’s been working nonstop,” I said. “Taking a day won’t collapse the pack.”

Franklin didn’t look at me. “This isn’t about one day.”

“It is,” I said. “If he pushes through it like this, tomorrow will be worse.”

Cameron leaned back. “Franklin can handle it.”

Franklin’s head snapped toward him. He didn’t like it. That much was clear. But Cameron had already decided.

The house had its own rhythm by evening. I moved through it in the way my mother had taught me: occupying it. I spoke to the grounds manager about the evening patrol schedule and mentioned that Cameron had asked for reduced traffic near the main wing. I told two staff members who came with requests that Cameron was resting and I would pass messages along. I rerouted three non-essential meeting requests to Franklin and told the relevant parties that Cameron had asked his Beta to handle discussions.

None of it was dramatic. It looked like the work of a mate managing a household while her partner recovered from fatigue.

Underneath all of it, Franklin was still there.

He appeared in the corridor at around six and looked at me from across the hall. He didn’t come close or speak. He just stood there with the stillness of a person who has decided to record rather than react. Then he turned and went back the way he had come.

I felt the discomfort that produced and walked away from it.

He was not confronting me because he had nothing solid enough yet, but he was adjusting around me with a seriousness that told me he was building toward something. My mother had said he couldn’t prove anything yet.

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Later, Cameron and Franklin sat in one of the living rooms, going through a few reports. I stayed close, watching without appearing to.

“Did you hear from Lisa?” Cameron asked suddenly.

Franklin shook his head. “I tried calling. The network isn’t stable on that route.”

Cameron frowned. “She called earlier. I missed it.”

“I’ll try again,” Franklin said.

“It’s not going through,” he said after a moment. “Signal drops before it connects.”

“Keep trying.”

I turned away before they noticed me. 1

That night I went to Cameron’s room.

He was already drowsy, sitting at the edge of the bed. I helped him out of his jacket. He thanked me. His eyes were half-closed. I told him to rest and waited while the specific heaviness of deep sleep settled across his face.

Then I reached carefully and applied the current unction to the side of his neck, the one that narrowed and drained without announcing itself.

He shivered, and it sent me a half-step back. I waited until his breathing changed back to the slow rhythm of unconsciousness.

In my room, I opened my hidden safe and looked at the sealed preparation.

The dominion unction.

Ten days, or fewer if the conditions aligned. I closed the case and put it away.

By the time that shameless surrogate made it back to him, he wouldn’t recognize her anymore.

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