"I have about a thousand questions," he said.
"I know."
"And I'm probably going to freak out again at some point."
"Probably."
"But right now..." He squeezed my hand. "Right now I'm just really glad you're here."
The words hit somewhere tender. I squeezed back.
"I'm not going anywhere."
We sat there for a long moment, hands linked, the bond humming between us. The mountain waited. The wolf in my visions waited. Everything I'd come here to do was still ahead of us.
But for now, this was enough.
James was alive. James was human again. James knew the truth.
And somehow, impossibly, he was still looking at me like I was something worth holding onto.
"We need to move," I said finally. "Find shelter before the weather turns. Can you walk?"
He tested his legs, grimacing. "I think so. Slowly."
"Slowly works."
I helped him to his feet, keeping an arm around his waist as he found his balance. He leaned into me more than he probably wanted to—exhaustion and shock making him unsteady—but he didn't complain.
We gathered what we could and started moving. One step at a time. Together.
Behind us, the blood-stained snow was already being covered by fresh fall.
Chapter seventeen
The rock outcropping appeared like a gift.
I'd been scanning the terrain for twenty minutes, half-supporting James as we stumbled through deepening snow, when I spotted it—a natural overhang carved into the mountainside, deep enough to block the wind, wide enough for shelter. Not perfect, but on a mountain in late season with an injured shifter and a storm building, perfect wasn't an option.
"There." I adjusted my grip on James's waist. "Can you make it another hundred yards?"
He lifted his head, squinting through the snow. "Yeah. Yeah, I can make it."
He couldn't. Not really. His legs were barely holding him, his weight increasingly heavy against my side. But stubbornness was keeping him upright, and I wasn't going to take that from him.
We made it in slow, grinding steps. By the time we reached the overhang, James was gray-faced and shaking, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold. I eased him down against the rock wall.
“Sit,” I said, already bracing him. “Don’t move.”
He slid down hard, head tipped back, breath coming shallow and uneven. I dropped the pack and turned into the wind.
Tent first.
There was no ground to work with—just wind-packed snow and ice. I stomped out a platform, boots driving down again and again until the surface rang solid beneath me.
The tent went up fast, fabric snapping violently as I wrestled it into place. No stakes. I buried what I had instead—stuff sacks filled with snow, jammed sideways and packed down until they disappeared. I hauled the guylines tight, reset them, hauled again.
The wind tried to tear it away anyway.
