For a moment, I just lie here. Feel his heartbeat. Inhale him.
Something shifted between us last night. Not just the physical intimacy. Something deeper that I’m still trying to understand.
His breathing changes. Waking. His arm tightens around me slightly before he seems to remember where we are. What we’re doing today.
“Morning,” I murmur against his chest.
“Morning.” His voice is rough with sleep. His hand moves up my back. Gentle. “How did you sleep?”
“Better than I expected.”
We should move. Get up. Prepare for what’s coming. Instead, we lie here for a few more minutes. Neither of us quite ready to let go.
Finally, I move. He releases me reluctantly. We both sit up. The morning is cold. Our breath mists slightly.
Getting dressed is quiet. But I’m aware of him in ways I wasn’t before. When he pulls off his shirt, I notice his bare chest. The places where yesterday’s wounds were are smooth now. Healed completely. Dragon metabolism erasing minor injuries overnight.
My eyes trace the lines of muscle. The old scars that remain. The way his body moves with fluid strength. He’s a giant of a man, in every sense, lethal power rippling beneath his skin. Not just his dragon. Him.
He catches me watching. Our eyes meet. Hold. Heat flares between us despite the cold air.
He looks away first. Pulls on a clean shirt that I’d packed into the supply pack I’d stashed in the truck. But not before I see his lips quirk up in the hint of a smile. Something in me answers. It doesn’t matter what happens next. We had this. This moment of… heaven.
I finish braiding my hair. Check my weapons. Lace my boots. All practical motions. But I feel his attention on me too. The weight of his gaze tracking my movements.
We don’t talk about last night. Don’t discuss what’s happening between us. Right now, there’s death on the horizon. Examining feelings seems pointless when we might not survive the day.
Still. Part of me mourns the possibility. Dying before we can explore this. Before I can understand what he’s becoming to me.
My wolf knows. Has been certain since the beginning. But I’m still wrestling with her certainty.
“Coffee?” Jericho asks. He’s in the small kitchen area, holding up instant packets he must have found in the cabin supplies.
“Please.”
He heats water on the camp stove. We both need something to do with our hands. Something normal.
When he hands me the cup, our fingers brush. Brief contact that sends warmth through me.
I think about Chance while sipping the terrible instant coffee. The thought doesn’t bring the sharp pain it used to. Instead, there’s a dull ache mixed with understanding I didn’t have before.
Jericho was a soldier. So was Chance. Both fighting for their people. Both believing their cause was right.
The order that killed Chance wasn’t personal. Wasn’t targeted. Just tactical decision in a war where both sides thought they were justified.
I take another sip and watch Jericho check ammunition.
He was wrong about what the Syndicate told him. But he believed it. Committed to it with the same conviction Chance had to our pack’s cause.
How different are they, really?
The question sits uncomfortably in my mind. But it’s there. And it’s changing how I see everything.
“Your pack,” Jericho says. “Will they trust me?”
“No.” Honest. “But they trust me. That’ll have to be enough.”
He nods. Accepts that.
