“So you and your father built this?” I asked after a little bit when it seemed as though the rain had no intention of letting up.


    Alexander nodded as he fumbled to light one of the candles I’d picked up. It actually managed to light after a few tries, and cast the small space in a warm golden glow.


    “Every weekend for about two months. He said every boy needed a secret hideout.” He ran his hand along one of the support beams. “I used toe up here all the time. Read books, y with my toys<b>.</b>”


    It was hard to picture the cold and stern Alpha King ying in a treehouse as a little boy, but the thought made me smile. Alexander, young and carefree and without the weight of a dark future ahead of him.


    If only that little boy knew what would happen to his parents.


    “What happened?” I asked. “Why did you stoping?”


    “Alpha training got more intensive. Father said I needed to focus on my duties, not waste time ying in the woods.” Alexander shrugged, but I could hear the old disappointment in the way he said it. “I guess I just outgrew it.”


    I thought about my own childhood, how different it had been. “I never had anything like this. My father thought ying in the woods wasn’tdylike. Said future Lunas needed to focus on more refined


    pursuits.”


    “What did you do instead?”


    “Snuck out to train with the warriors whenever I could.” I grinned at the memory. “My father was furious every time he caught me, but I didn’t care. I saw how free the warriors seemed, running through the forest every morning, and I wanted to be just like them.”


    Alexander’s mouth lifted faintly. “I bet you learned quickly just how rigorous a warrior training schedule


    really is.”


    <b>I </b>nodded and snorted. “Yeah. They were extra hard on me too–I think to try to deter me. But for some reason, I kept showing up and demanding to participate.”


    We fell quiet again after that, both lost in our own thoughts. The rain was stilling down even harder now. It probably wouldn’t stop for a long while longer.


    “Do you think our kid will want a treehouse?” Alexander asked suddenly.


    The question caught me off guard. “Our kid?”


    “Yeah. I mean, assuming they’re interested in that sort of thing. Not all kids are.” Alexander was looking around the treehouse again, but there was something different in his expression now. Something softer.”


    We could build them one. Somewhere safe where they could just be a kid for as long as they wanted.”


    The idea made me sit up straighter. “You’d really want to do that?”


    “Why wouldn’t I?”


    “I don’t know. I just…” I traced a pattern on the dusty floor with my finger. “I want to be better than my father was, I want our child to have the childhood I never got. Freedom to explore, to make mistakes, to just be happy, I didn’t know we’d be on the same page about that.”


    To my surprise, Alexander reached over and took my hand. “Well, we are. And for what it’s worth, it sounds like you’re going to be a great mother, E.”


    I looked up at him, surprised by the certainty in his words. “You’re just saying that—<b>” </b>


    “I’m not. I mean it.” His green eyes caught the flickering candlelight, like two tiny wildfires burning in a spring forest. There was something else there, too, that had nothing to do with parental tenderness.


    It was the same desire I’d seen earlier. The same desire I’d felt in myself, being mirrored back at me.


    “Alexander…”


    Suddenly, a lightning bolt shed across the sky outside, followed a few momentster by a loud boom of thunder that drowned out whatever Alexander said next. I jolted, instinctively moving toward him. Warm arms encircled me and drew me closer.


    And then, suddenly, we were kissing again.


    It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t tentative.


    It was in time with each strike of lightning outside, and as we tumbled <i>to </i>the floor together, my hurt ankle waspletely forgotten.