“I trust you to do them. I don’t trust you not to break a plate in the process.”
He releases my wrist but doesn’t move away, just watches me for a long moment like he’s trying to memorize something. “You’re different today,” he says finally.
“How so?”
“Lighter. Even with everything going on.”
I shrug, though it’s not dismissive. “Maybe I’m just trying to hold onto the good parts while we have them.”
He nods slowly, like he understands that more than he can put into words.
And that’s when it happens. When the words that have been resting in the back of my throat for weeks finally slip free, quiet but certain.
“I love you.”
The air between us stills. His eyes lock on mine, the gold in them flaring just enough to catch the light.
“You’re sure about that?” he asks, his voice low, like he’s giving me a chance to take it back.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” I say, and it’s the truth. Every choice, every step that’s led me here, every moment we’ve fought and bled and almost broken, all of it’s brought me to this, and I wouldn’t undo any of it if it meant losing him.
Something in his expression shifts then, the kind of change that’s small enough to miss if you weren’t looking for it but big enough that I feel it, like the air in the room just got warmer. He steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, and says, “I love you too, Tessa.”
It’s not rushed, not thrown out like a shield or a weapon. It’s steady, solid, the kind of thing you can build something on.
When he kisses me, it’s slow at first, but there’s nothing tentative about it. His hand cups the side of my neck, his thumb brushing against my jaw, and I sink into him like I’ve been doing it my whole life. The world outside the kitchen might still be waiting to take its shot at us, but right now, in this moment, it’s just us.
And I know, without a doubt, that no matter what’s coming, this—him, us, here—is worth everything.
28
DARIUS
The forest is too quiet.
It’s not the natural quiet of night, when the wind sighs through the pines and the snow muffles the sound of distant streams. It’s the sharp, empty quiet that settles in before violence, the way the air in a room shifts before a fight starts. It smells different, too.
Flat. Sterile. The scents that should be here—hare, fox, damp moss under frozen soil—are faded, replaced by something faint and wrong, like old blood under fresh frost.
I follow the northern line of the perimeter, slow, deliberate, letting my boots sink into the snow with a crunch that feels too loud. The wards Mary set are steady in the air, humming low like the pulse of the land itself, but something’s brushing against them now, light and deliberate, as if to see how close it can get before they burn.
The scents sharpen a breath later. Wolf, male, three of them at least. One lynx. And something else… something I don’t know. It’s sharp in the nose, resinous, like pine sap scorched in fire, but under it there’s a strange, metallic tang that makes my jaw tighten.
They’re here.
I step off the trail, moving toward the dark stretch of trees where the scent’s thickest, and I’m no more than five strides in when the first shadow breaks. He’s young, built lean, charging low with his head down like brute speed will win him something. I sidestep at the last moment, catching him by the collar and the back of the neck, using his own momentum to throw him forward into the snow. He hits face-first, stunned, and I leave him there.
The second one’s smarter, keeping to the trees, using the trunks for cover. His scent hits stronger: lynx shifter, older, careful. I see his eyes just before he leaps, claws out, aiming for my side. I step into him instead of away, one arm locking around his neck, the other gripping his wrist, and spin, driving his spine into the trunk of a pine. The impact sends a thick branch groaning and cracking, dumping its load of snow down over both of us. He hits the ground under the weight, hissing, and I move on.
A whisper of snow behind me is the only warning before a third is on me, blade flashing silver in the moonlight. Tessa’s voice cuts the air, sharp and urgent—“Darius, left!”—and I turn just in time to catch his wrist. The blade nicks the inside of my forearm, heat blooming under the cold, but I twist hard, forcing him to drop it. The knife lands in the snow with a muffled thud. I kick it away, stepping into him and driving my knee up into his gut. He folds, and I shove him down into the snow.
The wolf in me is pushing now, pacing inside my skin, claws scratching against my bones, urging me to shed this human form and finish it the old way. But I force the breath into my lungs, the air cold and clean, pulling Tessa’s scent into me until the urge bends, not breaks.
A fourth shadow bursts from the tree line—taller, heavier—coming straight for me. But there’s another, lean and fast, who doesn’t aim for me at all. He’s moving for her.
Everything in me snaps into focus.
I’m already moving before the thought’s fully formed, closing the distance in three strides. My shoulder takes him in the ribs mid-sprint, and the sound is sharp and satisfying; the snap of bone under force.
