Chapter 4: Echoes in the East Wing

Evening comes fast, like the clock is running a race it refuses to lose. The guests begin to thin out, and I am finally directed to my old room.

I am so exhausted, as if the world has been placed on my body, and this has nothing to do with the flight. One thing that strikes me most is that the room is still the same as I left it. Its pale walls and high ceiling remain unchanged. I look at the window and I am back in those old days, sitting on the ledge as a teenager, pretending I am somewhere else. On the dresser, I see fresh flowers. Someone must have bought them and placed them there. White roses. I stare at them for a while and look away before I find myself pulled back into the beauty they radiate effortlessly.

Then I sit on the side of the bed to calculate my decision clearly.

I will simply be civil. I will be distant, composed, and formal. I will attend the final burial tomorrow and pay my last respects to the only Steele who was ever sincerely kind to me. Afterwards, I will get into the car and go back to my life, the real life I left before coming here to stir memories of the life I have buried in my mind. The real life I constructed from scratch with my own two hands.

My wolf makes a sound at the back of my mind to get my attention. A low, unimpressed sound.

I ignore it immediately and lie down.

To sleep feels like war. Sleep feels so distant from my eyes, miles away, as though I have to struggle just to take part in the natural blessing given to the living. My body wants it, but my wolf resists it, restless and awake when I should be slipping under the soft arms of sleep, singing its warmth in my ears.

I drift in and out of a thin imagination, very aware of the house around me. The sounds, the creaks, the silences. The way the corridor outside my door carries footsteps if one listens closely enough. Even then, I am not sure I am the only one listening.

And I think that is why, at a time I am sure is past midnight, I hear them.

One step at a time, moving slowly, creating the rhythm of a gentle walker who is not lost, a walker who knows exactly where they are heading.

I know those footsteps like a hunter knows the walk of their prey.

My wolf is already vigilant, standing on its feet inside me, and my heart rate climbs as if the wolf within has pushed the gear to a very high speed. I sit up in the dark, waiting, until the footsteps stop outside my door.

What follows next is silence.

Immediately, I get up like I am conditioned to act rather than by my own will. I do not know why I get up or what I am meant to do, or if I am simply refusing to admit it out loud. My hand finds the door handle in the dark and I pull it open.

The corridor is dark. The only source of light comes from a wall lamp burning at the far end, casting everything in an amber shadow.

And there he is.

Dominic Steele stands close enough for my nostrils to catch his scent again immediately, cedar and a warmer aroma underneath. His jaw is tight, alongside his unpredictable eyes. From the way he is looking, I would not be wrong to say he has been standing outside that door for a while, arguing with himself, and now he has finally lost.

He opens his mouth and pronounces my name.

That’s all.

Just, “Sophie.”

“I needed to be sure you were real.”

That is what he utters next after pronouncing my name like he is the priest in charge when I was christened, standing in my doorway at midnight like he has lost an argument with himself. The sentence falls from his mouth, gentle and flat, with no explanation attached, no apology. And he makes it seem like it is the most normal thing in the world to show up outside my door at midnight after a good seven years of nothing and express himself here like it is supposed to wow me.

I stare at him. He holds my look for a while.

Then he suddenly deviates from what I expect. He turns and walks away without saying goodbye. I am about to respond to his statement, but as it stands, he is leaving without a dramatic exit. I hear his footsteps moving back down the dark corridor. The darkness swallows his visibility.

I am standing all by myself in my doorway, holding the door handle like it is the only thing I have got to survive what just happened.

I shut the door behind me.

Then I stand with my back against the door, using it as support, resting into it. I press my palm flat on my chest, trying to calm this restless breathing of my heart.

Regardless, it does not stop.

I find sleep, but sleep does not find me. While I am searching for it, I lie on top of the covers, stare at the ceiling, watch the hours run. My wolf walks within me throughout the whole night, back and forth, unrelenting, cool to a degree I have no patience to manage. Every time I close my eyes, I see his face. I imagine the way he looked at me in the doorway like I am a prodigal wife who left him, whom he has been searching for, and now that he has found me, he is quite amazed he did.

“I needed to be sure you were real.”

What does that even mean in the first place? What is a man of high calibre like Dominic Steele doing with a thought like that for seven years?

I force myself to bury the thoughts in the grave of my mind.

And exactly at 6 a.m. in the morning, I give up on sleep totally. I sit up, run my hands through my hair, and breathe in and out.

The burial is today. The plan is simple: I get through today, I get into the car, and I go home to my beloved Ethan.

Then I grab my wash bag and move before I can think too hard about it.

The east wing family bathroom is still at the exact spot I left it in my memory. It is seated at the end of the corridor, past the linen cupboard and the narrow window that overlooks the garden. I remember I used to come here as a teen because it had the best water pressure in the whole house and because nobody noticed or ever used it. The Steeles had their own en suites, and the east wing bathroom was always my possession by default—a corner of the house I had owned to myself.

Childhood old habits. Well, I do not think much of it. I just go on.

The door opens like it is expecting me. The room is cool, still, and smells faintly of old stone and a floral soap someone left on the ledge. I turn the shower on and wait for it to warm up, leaning on the sink and watching my own face in the mirror. I look tired. And I am about to feel a bit relieved in this bath.

And like a flash, the dream replays in my head repeatedly—the one I had two nights ago in my studio—making my whole body heavy. I think briefly of the dream, then I think of the steam, the shower curtain, and the way everything here feels unavoidable.

I dismiss it.

It was a dream. Dreams can be foolish or dangerous.