She made a face, skeptical, then rolled toward me, nuzzling her cheek to my chest. “Don’t wanna miss anything,” she mumbled, then slid a hand down to my hip and squeezed, like she was checking if I was still solid. “Can’t believe you’re real,” she added, and I laughed, a low rumble under her ear.
I watched her drift off again, the hand at my waist slackening, her cheek mashed into me. I wanted to ask her if she felt safe. I wanted her to answer, to say it in words. But I realized, as her breathing dropped back into the long, deep troughs of unselfconscious sleep, that she already had—she’d trusted me enough to lose, and then trusted me again to bring her home.
I lay there, not sleeping, feeling the steady burn of her body against mine, and realized—for the first time in decades, maybe ever—that I didn’t want anything else. Not power or freedom or even peace, exactly. Just the simple, ancient pleasure of having her here, right now, and the knowledge that I could keep her safe from every other hunger that stalked the world.
This was the part I hadn’t planned for, the part no one prepared me for in all the years of reading human manuals or watching sitcoms on late-night cable. The part where wanting became needing, and needing became a quiet, unkillable promise lodged somewhere behind the ribs. I stroked the inside of her arm, letting my claws graze the softest skin, and imagined a thousand different futures with her—most of them messy, all of them better than anything I’d ever managed on my own.
I listened to the way her breathing synchronized with mine, until the rhythm was indistinguishable: two animals, one pulse. I let the thought settle, let it root deep and coil around every other want I’d ever had. If anyone tried to take this from me, I’d burn the world to the ground.
I closed my eyes, finally, and drifted down with her, both of us tangled in the raw, sweet aftermath of the Chase. I would wake before her, I knew, and I’d hold her through the small hours, and when daylight came, I’d start all over again. I wasn’t ever letting her go.
Annie woke before I did, or maybe I just let her think she had. I could have listened to her heartbeat for hours, the faint double-hitch as she rolled away from my chest, the way her breath caught when she stretched. I let her go, feigning sleep, until the sound of her feet on the floor—soft, deliberate, like she wassneaking out of a one-night stand—triggered something old and territorial in my chest. I almost reached for her, almost dragged her back into the tangle of sheets, but I stopped myself. I wanted to see what she’d do, how she carried herself now that she’d been claimed and marked and wanted.
She didn’t run. I heard the water in the bathroom, the rattle of the faucet, then the hiss of the shower. I imagined her standing there, steam curling around her bruised neck and battered thighs, my print still fresh on her hip. The thought was almost too much. I closed my eyes hard, willed myself to stay put, and listened to the world tick by in the soft, slow increments of morning.
When she came back, hair towel-twisted and skin flushed, she found me standing at the window, in only my boxer briefs. The desert was a furnace outside, heat already crawling up the glass, but Annie’s gaze swept past the horizon and fixed on me. She didn’t say anything at first—just padded across the carpet and slumped onto the bed beside me, letting her towel slip to her shoulders.
I reached out, traced a finger down the side of her neck. The bruise there was spectacular, a smear of violet and gold. "I like seeing myself on you," I said, voice thick, and she snorted, but didn’t pull away.
"Possessive much?" she said, but the smile on her face said she liked it.
I let my hand drift to her jaw, thumb resting on the hinge of bone. "Only with you," I said, and it was the truth.
We sat like that for a minute, the silence companionable, until she broke it:
"Is today the last day of the trial?"
I nodded. "Sunset. Mayor comes by for the final check-in, and we tell him if we’re a match or if we want to call it quits."
She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them. "What happens if we say we’re a match?”
I shrugged, trying to hide the way my pulse banged in my neck. She already knew my answer—I’d made it clear. My claws flexed involuntarily against my thigh, leaving tiny half-moon indentations in my skin. "You stay. We do the ninety-day trial." I swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. "We move into my house on the other side of the Valley. See if we still like each other at the end of the next trial."
She mulled that over, turning it around in her head like a coin. "And if I say no?"
I didn’t flinch. "You go home. You’re free. No strings, no consequences." I tried to sound casual about it, but the words felt brittle in my mouth.
She chewed on that, then looked up at me, her eyes sharp and blue as a Nevada winter. "So we're really doing this? Ninety days?" She flexed her toes against the carpet, making small divots. "Are you sure you're ready for that much of me? Because I get clingy and weird when I'm nervous, and this whole situation is..." She gestured between us, at the marks on her neck.I grinned, slow and deliberate.
"Ninety days of weird sounds perfect," I said, tracing a claw lightly down her arm. "It's the quiet I can't stand."
"You're such a liar," she said, but there was no accusation in it. She lifted her chin, letting the sun hit the side of her neck. "I'm reserving the right to change my mind, but for now, I vote yes. Ninety days."
I felt a weird, electric shudder in my chest. I wanted to grab her, toss her on the bed, and pin her until she screamed again. Instead I only nodded, letting the words hang in the air between us like a rare desert butterfly that might disappear if I moved too quickly or breathed too hard in its direction.
I cleared my throat. "So, want to see where I live?" I said, trying to sound casual. "It's not far. Plus, I have this ridiculous espresso machine I've been dying to show off to someone who might actually appreciate it." I glanced at her, then out the window. "Might give you a better idea of what you're getting into. You know, before you decide." I shrugged, as if it didn't matter much either way, though the tightness in my chest suggested otherwise.
Annie gave me a look, half skeptical and half amused. "You have a house?"
"Of course I have a house," I said, trying to sound offended. "What did you think I did, sleep in a cave?"
She snorted. "Honestly? Maybe." She reached over and laced her fingers with mine, her thumb tracing the strange ridges of my knuckle. "Show me, then. If you want me to say yes, you have to let me see where the demon goes when he’s not breaking the headboard."
I grinned, all fangs and delight. "Deal. But we’re flying."
Her face lit up. "Are you sure you won’t drop me?"
I leaned in, nose brushing her hairline. “Did I last time?”
