I’m already out of my nest. “I’ll text you in a second and see you in a few minutes,” I promise before ending the call.
I make my quiet way down the hall to the cloakroom and step into my fur-lined boots, then finally slip my parka down off its cedar hanger.
“Just where do you think you’re going?” Hawthorn demands.
I startle, immediately trying to find an excuse, until I remember Ian’s note.Trust Hawthorn. “A friend’s passing by and wanted to wish me a happy new year. I’m just ducking out for a few minutes.”
“A friend? In the middle of the night? Must be that study buddy you’ve been spending so much time with.” He waggles his eyebrows, once more the Hawthorn I’ve loved and trusted for years. “You’re in luck. With all the caterers and vendors coming and going, Father hasn’t reset the wards yet. You’ve got until morning, but don’t push your luck. Head out the back and cut across the gardens by the carriage house. No magic, no cameras. You can sneak out down the service road. Have your dick appointment meet you there, just past the gate.”
“My—!” Color floods my cheeks.
Hawthorn extends his fist and I weakly bump knuckles with him. I tap out a quick text to Luca about where to meet me and then shove my phone into the pocket of my leggings.
“Hey, Junebear?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re not what they say you are—in private or to your face. Well, you’re freaky powerful, but the rest of it is bullshit. They’ve got you all wrong.”
“They’ve got you wrong too, Hawth.”
He quirks a brow and grins. “That is exactly the point.”
I pause for a moment, relief washing through me. I haven’t lost my brother to the rest of my family after all. “Hey, Hawthorn? What’s… what’s an affinity?”
My phone chimes in my pocket and Hawthorn shakes his head. “Not here, not now. Go and forget about Rose bullshit for a night. Get that good dick and we’ll talk soon, all right?”
I bounce forward and wrap him in a tight hug and I sneak out just the way he told me to. The moment I leave the manor grounds, it’s like all my worries wash away, if only for now. Luca’s leaning against the side of a parked pick-up truck at the end of the service road behind the manor, looking like sin and salvation, and saints above, does he make me want both.
I can’t help it. I run into his arms, and he catches me with a surprised and amused “oof!”
“You came all this way for me?” I look up at him, into those sea-green eyes that have always mesmerized me. I move to step back because, despite the fact that he’s here, despite the fact that just his voice banishes some of my darkest thoughts, we haven’t talked yet, but he doesn’t let me go.
“Not yet,” he says in a strained growl, nuzzling his scent into my skin. “My instincts are going wild, and I need… please, I need a moment.”
Of me, in his arms, just like this.
I snuggle into him, into the soft flannel beneath his leather coat, drawing his scent into my lungs, letting it wash over me until I’m nearly drunk on red wine and cherries.
Right.Thisis right. I stumbled back to him, and he ismine. We have to talk, and we have so much to work through, but we will.
He finally releases me, and I feel the loss of him immediately, missing his warmth, the long, lean planes of his body against mine. He smiles as I try to slip back into his arms and it’s like the sunrise after Yule’s longest night. Bright and brilliant and full of hope.
“Come away with me? Just for a few hours?”
“You’ll have me home before my carriage turns back into a pumpkin?” I tease, lacing my fingers with his.
“My princess,” he growls.
“My alpha.”
“Please, don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it,” I whisper.
I watch him fight with his instincts, with the need to have me back in his arms, watch as raw, naked need softens to what I now know means love. What has always meant love.
The wonder in his eyes, his slackened jaw that parts his lips, the softness of him, it’s always been love.
