TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 170

One hundred and seventy

NADIA POV

I was on my fourth position when I stopped trying to sleep and just lay there, looking at the ceiling.

The trial sat at the front of my mind no matter how I tried to push it back. Two days. That was all I had before everything moved from quiet talk to public judgment.

I should not have been afraid.

Desmond did not scare me. What scared me was how much he knew.

He knew about me and Franklin. He knew about Cameron and Lisa. Those were not things people guessed. Those were things people were told.

I sat up.

There were only so many people who had access to that level of detail.

I ran through them one by one.

The household staff. Seven of them, all live-in, most of them long-term. The youngest had been with us for six years. They were paid well and understood what loyalty to an Alpha house meant in practical terms. That did not mean coercion or fear was impossible. A well-paid person could still be threatened. I noted it, but I set it low.

Desmond had resources. He could have paid for surveillance. A device somewhere in the house, a hired contact near our regular routes. That was possible.

But the level of detail he seemed to have was specific in a way that suggested access rather than inference. You could not surveil a private conversation through a device if the conversation happened in a room you had not anticipated.

Then there was Franklin, who knew everything and moved everywhere. He had access to Cameron at all times.

No.

If Franklin wanted to destroy this house, he would not do it in pieces. He would not stand in the middle of it and pretend.

I kept landing on the same name.

Evangeline.

Not because I wanted to. Because she was the only person who checked both conditions. She had access. She was inside the house, inside the conversations that no staff member had been part of. And the benefit of giving Desmond information that weakened Cameron’s household, I could not argue that one away no matter how I tried.

I pressed my palm against my forehead.

“I’m reaching,” I muttered.

A knock came at my door. I didn’t need to ask who it was.

“Come in.”

Franklin stepped inside and closed the door behind him. 1

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“You shouldn’t be in here,” I said. “We don’t know who is watching what anymore.”

“They won’t.”

“The east corridor is clear. I checked the last rotation before I came up. We have about twenty minutes before the next pass.”

I pushed myself off the bed. “Say what you came to say.”

He walked closer, wrapped his hands around my waist, and leaned in to kiss me. I turned away.

“You’re spiraling.”

“I’m thinking.”

“You’re connecting things without proof.”

“Then give me proof,” I snapped. “Because right now, someone is feeding Desmond information from inside this house.”

He pulled me toward him and held my face in both hands.

The thing between Franklin and me had never been simple, and it had never been only physical, even though I had spent two years insisting that was all it was. That was easier to maintain when the consequences were theoretical. Now they were not. 1

We didn’t have time. We tore at each other’s clothing and had quick but intense sex. Afterwards, we lay beside each other, panting.

“Evangeline fits the pattern,” he said while staring at the ceiling.

“You landed there fast.”

“I ruled others out first.”

“So did I.”

We lay there in silence, both aware of what that meant.

“I spoke to her earlier,” I said. “She seems innocent.”

“That doesn’t clear her.”

“I know.”

I hesitated, then chose my words carefully. “She thinks you’re the problem.”

He turned to face me. “Did she say that?”

“She implied it.”

I did not say more. I wanted to see how he reacted without giving him everything.

He scoffed. “That helps.”

“It does?”

“It means she’s deflecting.”

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“Or she’s right,” I said.

He burst into loud laughter.

“If I was the leak, you would already be destroyed,” he replied.

He sat up and pulled me with him. I resisted, then gave in and settled across his lap.

“If you had not been stubborn,” he said quietly, “we would not be dealing with this now.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t start.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. This is not about us.”

“It is,” he said. “Everything here is tied together.”

I pushed that aside. “What do we do?” 1

“We observe.”

He told me what he wanted me to do. Early morning, before the house moved. Cameron’s room. He did not say exactly why, but he said Alpha Kieran had instructed that Cameron be monitored in the early hours directly, not through reports.

“Why?”

“Because whatever she’s doing, she won’t do it in front of people. You’re his sister. You have standing access.

“And if she’s there?”

“Then you walk out.”

“And if she’s not?”

“Then you look.”

I held his gaze. “What exactly am I looking for?”

“Anything that doesn’t belong.”

I went at four forty-five.

No one stopped me. That was the advantage of being who I was.

Cameron’s door was not locked. I stepped inside and closed it behind me without making a sound.

He was heavily asleep.

“Cameron,” I said quietly.

Nothing.

He was on his back. In six years of watching him carry more pressure than most Alphas twice his age, I had never seen him sleep like that.

I checked his temperature with the back of my hand against his forehead. Normal. I pulled the collar of his shirt

3/5

hundred and seventy

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aside, and that was when I saw the rash. A cluster of raised marks along the jaw and down toward the collarbone, slightly thickened at the edges, older than a few days.

“What is that?” I murmured.

I pulled out my phone and took a picture.

Then I scanned the room. Nothing out of place.

I was replacing his collar when I noticed the vial. It was on the nightstand, pushed behind the base of the lamp small and red, and easy to miss if you were not looking for something to find. I almost moved past it. Then I stopped and looked again.

I picked it up with the hem of my shirt wrapped around my fingers. The scent that came through was unusual. Not medicinal. Not perfume. Something I had no category for, something with an edge that sat at the back of the throat. I tightened my shirt around it, put it in my pocket, and left the room.

By the time breakfast was set, Cameron was already seated.

He looked normal.

Normal on the surface but slower underneath. He spoke less and didn’t push conversation.

I spotted Franklin walking past and excused myself. We stepped into a side corridor.

“What did you see?” he asked.

I pulled out my phone and showed him the picture.

His eyes narrowed.

He looked at the vial longer. He did not open it.

“You think she’s using it on him.”

He nodded.

“I think it could be altering him.”

“Or it could be something else entirely,” I said.

“Then we test it. We need to get it to Kieran without drawing attention.”

“Cameron won’t authorize a blood test. You know how he is about medical intervention.”

“We go around him carefully. Kieran has the authority to order it on grounds of a health check. Cameron respects him enough not to push back hard.”

I nodded.

After breakfast, I sat across from Evangeline.

“Have you noticed Cameron has been off?” I asked.

She looked up. “He’s been pushing himself.”

“I thought I was overthinking it,” I said.

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“You are,” she replied lightly. “He’ll be alright.”

She said it smoothly, the way she said most things. I filed that away.

I was in the upper corridor that afternoon when I heard her voice at the far end of the east wing. She was at the window, turned away from the corridor, speaking low into her phone. I slowed my pace without stopping.

I caught pieces. The word window. Something that sounded like closing. Then the phrase act fast, clipped and certain.

Then nothing.

I kept walking until I was out of range. Then I stopped in an alcove near the stairwell and typed quickly to Franklin.

She said window. Closing. Act fast. I don’t know what it means.

Three dots appeared on the screen.

It sounds like a plan with a deadline.

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