Chapter 352: The Weeknd night 7

The streets were quieter on the way back. Lor walked with his hands in his pockets, the night air cool against his face after the warmth of Kuri’s house.

Most of the lamps along the residential lanes had already been turned down for the evening.

The cobblestones still held a faint dampness from the earlier drizzle, and every few steps his boots made a soft, wet sound that echoed a little too clearly in the empty stretch between houses.

He was late.

He had told his mother that he would be home soon.

That had been before the dungeon, before the tavern, before the alley, before the long stretch of theory and the payment that followed.

Time had slipped.

The thought of his mother waiting, maybe glancing at the door more than once, sat in the back of his mind with a small, familiar weight.

He picked up his pace without quite realizing it.

The information about Ameth turned over quietly while he walked.

Childhood. Mother’s death. Orphanage.

The way she had locked everything behind that expressionless face. Useful. Something he could work with later if the situation required it.

The rest of the day stayed further back, filed away with less urgency.

His stomach reminded him that he had not actually eaten dinner. The glass of water at Kuri’s table had been the last thing he put in his body.

Hunger sat low and persistent.

The Vayne house came into view at the end of the lane.

The upper window was dark. The lower one still held a soft, warm light behind the curtains.

Lor slowed as he reached the front path.

He was about to put his hand on the door when the sound reached him.

It was not loud.

The walls of the house were decent.

But the night was quiet enough that the muffled, rhythmic noise carried clearly through the wood.

A low male breath.

A softer, higher sound that broke on the edge of a moan and then tried to stay quiet again.

The faint, steady creak of the bedframe.

Lor stopped with his fingers already on the handle.

His face settled into a tired, annoyed expression that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with being hungry and not wanting to walk into the middle of that.

He stood there for a few seconds, listening to the unmistakable pattern of his parents trying—and not entirely succeeding—to keep the volume down.

He exhaled through his nose.

There was no clean way around it.

The least disruptive option was to make enough noise that they knew he was back home, then remove himself from the equation.

He opened the door, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him with a thud.

The front room was empty and dim.

The sounds from the bedroom down the short hallway hitched for half a second at the noise of the door.

Lor walked straight across the floor, feet loud on the floorboard and took the stairs two at a time.

The old boards creaked under his weight exactly the way they always did.

At the top of the stairs he raised his voice just enough to carry clearly downward without shouting.

"I’m home Mom. Ate outside. I am going to bed."

He went into his room and shut the door hard enough that the frame rattled.

Downstairs, the sounds stopped completely for several long seconds.

In the bedroom, Mira’s hands were still twisted in the sheets. Eren held himself still above her, breathing evenly, listening to the footsteps overhead and the solid thud of the door.

Their eyes met in the low light from the single lamp on the side table.

Mira’s face was flushed, her black hair spread across the pillow, the soft expression she wore only in this room still half-present.

Eren’s grey-streaked hair fell forward as he looked down at her.

Neither of them spoke. The house settled around the sudden silence.

Then Eren leaned down and kissed her, slow and unhurried, the same way he had been kissing her before the interruption.

Mira’s breath left her against his mouth.

Her hands came back up to his shoulders.

The bedframe creaked once more as they found the earlier rhythm again, quieter this time, the knowledge that their son was home sitting between them without stopping anything.

Upstairs, Lor stood in the middle of his room and let out a long breath.

The residual sounds from below were muffled now, almost lost under the ordinary night noise of the house settling.

He could still hear them if he listened for it.

He chose not to.

Hunger and leftover tension sat in his body in equal measure.

He crossed to the window, unlatched it, and pushed the wooden frame outward.

Cool night air moved in at once, carrying the faint smell of damp stone and distant woodsmoke.

He climbed out onto the narrow ledge, braced one hand on the roof tiles above, and pulled himself up.

He had been coming up here every time his parents got romantic at night.

He stood easily on the slight slope, boots planted on the tiles, the whole quiet street laid out below him in broken orange lamplight and long shadows.

The moon was high and nearly full.

Its light washed the rooftops in a pale, even silver that made the wet patches from the earlier drizzle stand out.

The breeze moved across his face and through his black hair, cool enough to clear the last of the indoor heat from his skin.

He let his shoulders drop.

For a moment he simply stood there, breathing, the low sounds of the town at night rising and falling around him.

Three roofs over, something broke the clean line of the moonlight.

A silhouette sat on the low wall of the neighboring roof, legs drawn up, back straight.

The shape was tall and distinctly curved—full chest, narrow waist, the long line of bare arms resting on raised knees.

Long black hair moved in the same breeze that touched him, long and straight, lifting and settling against the pale light.

Lor’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The figure turned its head.

Even at this distance the movement was familiar.

The way the shoulders shifted.

The angle of the neck.

When the face came into the moonlight the recognition landed clean and immediate.

Icy blue eyes.

Kiara.