TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 245

Two hundred and forty five

Lisa POV

My heart slammed against my ribs.

Tell Cassidy Cameron was here and I couldn’t make it to the chapter house… or sneak out and hope he/never noticed.

If I told her, she’d think I was choosing Cameron over them and that I couldn’t function without him. If I slipped out instead, Cameron might notice and ask questions. Sooner or later, he’d find out about the chapter house.

I couldn’t let that happen.

He was downstairs with Alpha Kieran when I pulled out my phone and sent Cassidy a message.

Cameron showed up out of nowhere. He’s staying the night, so I can’t make it to the chapter house.

Her reply came almost immediately.

Stay home.

I stared at the message until another notification lit up my screen.

Don’t give him a reason to notice anything different. Your job tonight is to act exactly as you always would.

I let out a relieved sigh and slipped my phone into my pocket, then I headed downstairs.

Alpha Kieran looked up as I walked in. He cleared his throat. “Cameron will stay in the guest room tonight.”

Cameron frowned and Alpha Kieran laughed.

“If it’ll help everyone sleep better, whatever,” Cameron muttered.

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

Later, when everyone turned in, Cameron stopped me outside my room. He drew me against his chest, his arms settling around me. His steady heartbeat thudded beneath my cheek and the tightness I’d carried all evening eased.

That night, I fell asleep without listening for the door to burst open.

I woke to sunlight spilling through the curtains.

Mom was already downstairs making breakfast. Cameron sat across from Alpha Kieran, talking with him about pack business I couldn’t follow. You’d never think anything had happened.

Breakfast passed with easy conversation. Mom complained about the price of groceries. Alpha Kieran teased Cameron about eating too much. Cameron argued back.

It almost made me forget why he was here.

After we ate, Cameron got ready to leave. I walked him to the front door.

He cupped my face and kissed me.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said.

I nodded.

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I stayed on the porch until his car disappeared beyond the trees. Only then did I turn back inside.

Later that morning, I returned to the chapter house.

Cassidy had already left for my birth pack.

The older women sat outside the gate as they always did. Some knitted. Some shelled beans into metal bowls. Others watched people come and go without saying a word.

Inside, nothing had changed.

Victoria spotted me in the lobby and smiled.

“There you are. I was beginning to wonder if our services were no longer needed for you.”

“I wouldn’t disappear that easily.”

She laughed and continued toward the kitchen.

I carried my bag into the dormitory. My blankets were folded at the foot of my mattress. I set the bag beside it.

If Cameron ever found out I’d been sleeping here…

I pushed the thought away.

I wasn’t doing this only for me or the baby. I was doing it for him too.

The meeting started soon after.

The women who had completed their initiation crossed the hall and joined the set house. The rest of us stayed where we always did, watching from the back

My hand settled over my stomach.

Cassidy should have reached my birth pack by now.

She had mentioned the anchor holding Cameron’s false bond together. Find it, destroy it, save him.

Nobody knew where to look.

I wasn’t expecting Joanna to send for me. Victoria found me after breakfast and led me to Joanna’s office.

“Come in.”

Joanna looked up from the papers spread across her desk. I stepped inside, closed the door, and she pointed to the chair across from her.

“Sit.”

I did.

She finished reading the page in front of her, set it aside, and looked at me.

“How is Cameron?”

The question caught me off guard.

There was something in her expression that made me wonder if Cassidy had already told her Cameron spent the night at my house.

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wo hundred and forty live

+15 Bchus

“He seems better,” I said.

She rolled her pen between her fingers without taking her eyes off me.

The silence stretched.

I couldn’t tell if she was waiting for me to say something or deciding whether I would.

The question I’d been carrying slipped out before I could lose my nerve.

“Why can’t Cameron be saved the way Alpha Kieran was?”

Joanna gave a quiet snort.

“Because Cameron isn’t where Kieran was.”

She folded her hands on the desk.

“Kieran had already reached dominion when we got him out. Cameron hasn’t. Someone is holding him between two states. He’s resisting, but the dominion isn’t breaking. Your pregnancy is part of what’s keeping him there.”

She let that settle before continuing.

“Cameron should have crossed into full, dominion by now. The fact that he hasn’t tells us something is interfering.

11

“Then why does it seem like nobody knows what to do?”

The words left my mouth before I could pull them back.

Joanna didn’t look offended.

“Every dominion survives because something sustains it. A bloodline. An heirloom. A place. A living person. A ritual.”

She held my gaze.

“Evangeline’s false bond with Cameron is no different. Something is feeding it. Find that, destroy it, and the dominion loses what keeps it alive.”

She leaned forward.

“If we destroy the wrong thing, Meridian won’t see it as a mistake. They’ll know we’re getting close.”

Her voice dropped.

“And you will be the first person they come for.”

The office suddenly felt smaller.

“Do you understand?”

I nodded.

They weren’t stumbling through guesses.

They were crossing possibilities off the list, one by one.

“We don’t chase theories, Lisa,” Joanna said. “We verify them.”

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+15 Benus

I nodded again.

“Cassidy is keeping tabs on Catherine’s son,” she said.

I nodded.

“Are you certain he isn’t Meridian?”

“I’m certain he wasn’t recruited. Meridian doesn’t recruit every child in a family.”

She crossed to the tea table and poured herself a cup.

“They choose the one they can shape into a weapon.”

My mind went to Kade.

Reckless. Flirtatious. Immature.

I’d never looked at him and seen someone dangerous.

Evangeline was different.

“Kade is a lead,” Joanna said. “If he knows something useful, we’ll use it. If he doesn’t, we move on. We trust evidence, not hope.”

I nodded.

The room fell quiet.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“There is.”

She waited.

“You told me Luna Catherine was one of the reasons you were so hard on me.”

I hesitated.

“What did she do?”

Joanna set her teacup on the saucer.

“That witch didn’t just take people from me.”

Her voice never rose.

“She taught me exactly how to hate the daughters.”

She looked past me.

“I buried people because of her.”

That was all she offered.

I rose, bowed, and left.

As I walked back through the hall, Joanna’s words circled in my head.

Every dominion has an anchor.

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+15 Bens

So what was feeding Evangeline’s?

I’d lived under the same roof with her. I’d watched her play the fragile, sick wife until nobody questioned it. Cameron hadn’t questioned it either.

Everything about her had pointed in the direction she wanted us to look.

Nadia had searched Evangeline’s room and found things that didn’t belong there.

But if the anchor had been that obvious, Joanna wouldn’t still be looking.

Meridian wasn’t careless.

Whatever kept Cameron trapped wasn’t sitting in a drawer waiting for someone to find it.

A thought settled in.

Maybe Evangeline didn’t know everything herself.

Maybe she’d only followed instructions.

That made Kade more important. He’d grown up with Evangeline and their mother. If there was a habit everyone else dismissed, he might remember it without realizing it mattered.

The hard part wasn’t finding Kade. It was getting close enough to learn something without letting him realize he was being watched.

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