“Can’t sleep?” I ask softly, stepping into the room and letting the door close behind me with a quiet click.
She looks up, those eyes meeting mine with an intensity that steals whatever breath Rue’s words hadn’t already taken. “Lost in my thoughts, as usual. It’s been one hurdle after another since I arrived in this realm. I’m feeling empty and incomplete yet slowly gaining back pieces of what I lost. I don’t know how to feel both things at once, this hollow ache and this growing fullness.”
I move closer and sit on the floor beside the bed, drawn to her like metal to a lodestone, unable to resist the pull any longer. “Some things we carry forever. Others we just survive, but most importantly you’re alive, Esme. At the end of every terrible day, you wake up, and you stand all over again. That’s not nothing.”
She smiles, a soft and achingly sad expression that tugs at something deep in my chest. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience, like you know what it feels like to lose everything and have to rebuild from nothing.”
I nod, feeling the familiar weight of old ghosts stirring in the shadows of my mind. “I am.”
I start to speak about logistics, the path to the mountain, how we shouldn’t stay here for long, but she interrupts me, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I don’t want to talk about the next trial,” Esme says softly. “Or what’s waiting for me at the summit.”
I pause, looking up at her. She’s exhausted, not just in body but in soul, a bone-deep weariness that comes from carrying too many burdens for too long. There’s something unraveling and rebuilding in her all at once, like a tapestry being unmade and rewoven with different threads.
“I just want to be. Just for tonight.” She pleads, as if I would ever deny her anything, as if I could. The very thought is absurd. I’d move mountains, drain oceans, tear down the veil between realms if she asked me.
She looks so small, so vulnerable, yet so incredibly strong. A contradiction of fierce resilience wrapped in delicate grace. Her eyes are pools of unspoken need with the ability to drown a man willingly. Her mouth, a soft invitation promising salvation or damnation, perhaps both.
“Then be,” I say softly, my voice a gentle caress in the quiet of the room. Two simple words carrying the weight of permission she never needed to ask for.
She crosses the space between us, sitting down on the floor beside me. Her presence is a comfort, a warmth that seeps into my bones, melting away every barrier I’ve constructed over decades. She leans into me, her head resting on my shoulder. “I’m not asking for a distraction,” she adds, her voice steady despite the vulnerability in her request. “I’m asking for something real.”
I don’t breathe, I wait as she continues, suspended in this moment between what was and what could be. The fire pops and crackles, marking time in the silence.
She shifts slightly, her shoulder brushing mine, the contact sending ripples of awareness through my skin. “And right now. . .what’s real is you.”
This is our truth laid bare in front of us, impossible to ignore any longer. From the start, I felt the connection between us, that invisible thread pulling us together despite all logic, despite our different realms, despite everything that should keep us apart. I fought it, denied it, buried it beneath duty and obligation, but there is no mistaking this inevitability.
I’ve felt it, in every heartbeat I’ve spent pretending I didn’t. In every glance I’ve stolen when I thought she wouldn’t notice. In every moment my body has shifted to protect hers without conscious thought.
“I’ve been watching you since that first moment,” I admit, voice low and rough with honesty. “Telling myself this was about duty. About proximity. About tension I could ignore. But it’s not.”
I reach for her hand, and she lets me take it, our fingers intertwining like they were designed to fit together. Her skin against mine feels like coming home to a place I’ve never been.
“It’s you,” I say, rough and raw. “And I’m tired of pretending otherwise.”
She leans in closer, her forehead resting against mine. Our breaths mingle, sharing the same air in this intimate space. “Then stop pretending.”
I turn to her, cupping her face in my hands. Her skin is warm against my palms, impossibly soft. Her eyes are luminous, reflecting the firelight, and I see my own longing mirrored back at me. The air between us crackles with anticipation, with possibilities unfolding like stars being born.
She climbs onto my lap, straddling me, her hands sliding up my chest with confident deliberation. I can feel her fingertips tracing patterns through my shirt, mapping me as if committing my form to memory. She kisses me, and it’s slow at first, reverent, a benediction. Then it deepens, need and desire sparking between us like a live wire. Her breath hitches, her body pressing against mine, every curve and line fitting perfectly against me as if we were carved from the same stone, separated only to find each other again.
Behind us, the chair creaks. Sam shifts awake, his eyes watching us with an intensity that should make me uncomfortable, that should trigger every territorial instinct I possess, but it doesn’t. Instead, it feels right, like we’re all pieces of the same puzzle finally fitting together after being scattered across time and space.
“Sam—” Esme starts, tension lining her shoulders as she pulls back slightly, but he lifts a hand, the gesture calm and assured.
“No,” he says, voice thick with emotion yet surprisingly clear. “I’m not mad. I’ve been watching you both for days. Watching her. Watching you.” He looks at me, eyes steady and knowing. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see it coming.”
The fire crackles between us, the only sound in the room as he stands, his large frame unfolding from the chair with unexpected grace for someone so formidable.
“I think. . .” He swallows, choosing his words with care. “I think I’ve been selfish. I didn’t mean to wedge myself between you and Micah, and I sure as hell don’t want to do it now with this.”
“Sam,” she breathes, her voice laced with something fragile, not quite regret, not quite relief, but something balanced precariously between the two.
He smiles, but it’s weighted with a knowledge that seems older than his years. “My wolf is possessive. It’s in my blood to claim. But this? This thing between you and her? It’s not a threat. It’s truth.”
He stands and steps closer, his voice lower now, steadier, as if speaking an oath. “There’s room in your heart, Esme. Room for all of us. For what you have with Micah. For what we have now. And for this—” He glances at me, acknowledgment passing between us. “For Locke.”
