Not away, not back toward safety and sanity and the human world that made sense. Toward us. Toward me. His boots crashed through underbrush as he fought to keep up with creatures built for speed and endurance, his breathing harsh but determined as he chased shadows through moonlight.
The pack slowed, confused by this breach of protocol, but Dad's commanding bark cut through their uncertainty.Let him.
So we ran together through the Evernight Forest, wolves and one crazy human who'd apparently decided that keeping up with a supernatural pack was a reasonable life choice.
At first, I'd been terrified he'd fall behind, that his human limitations would leave him lost in the darkness while we disappeared into the wild depths of our territory. But Natesurprised me—surprised all of us. Where I'd expected him to struggle, he seemed to come alive. His photographer's eye translated perfectly to navigating the forest, finding the clearest paths through undergrowth, anticipating obstacles before they could trip him up.
My wolf was practically purring with satisfaction, drunk on the scent of Nate's adrenaline and the sound of his labored breathing as he fought to keep pace. Every stumble over roots, every crash through low-hanging branches, every breathless laugh that escaped him when he barely avoided face-planting into a tree—it all fed something primal in me that I'd never known existed.
Pack, my wolf whispered with bone-deep certainty.He belongs.
The thought should have terrified me. Should have sent me into a spiral about humans and secrets and all the ways this could end in disaster. Instead, it felt like coming home to a truth I'd been running from my whole life.
Around us, the pack was reacting to Nate's presence with something between amazement and delight. Jonah kept circling back to check on him, tail wagging like an overgrown puppy who'd found a new favorite toy. Sienna had taken it upon herself to clear branches from his path, her wolf form dancing through the trees with protective grace. Even the older pack members who'd been skeptical about bringing a human into sacred space were watching him with something that looked suspiciously like approval.
And Nate? Nate was having the time of his fucking life.
Every few minutes, I'd catch glimpses of his face in the moonlight—flushed with exertion, eyes bright with the wild joy that came from doing something completely insane and discovering you were built for it. He whooped when he successfully vaulted over a fallen log, laughed breathlessly whenJonah playfully bumped his shoulder, and when a barn owl swept silently overhead, he actually slowed down just enough to watch its flight path with the wonder of someone seeing magic made real.
“This is incredible!” he shouted to the forest at large, voice carrying through the trees like a prayer of gratitude. “This is fucking incredible!”
My wolf wanted to howl with pride. Wanted to announce to every creature in the forest that this brave, beautiful, completely reckless human wasours. That he'd chosen to run with monsters and found joy in it instead of terror.
The pack responded to his enthusiasm like flowers turning toward sunlight. Their pace adjusted subtly to accommodate his shorter stride, their formation shifted to keep him protected at the center, and more than once I caught Dad's massive form moving through the shadows at our flank, guardian and witness to whatever was happening between the human boy and his son.
By the time we reached the Moon Clearing, Nate was grinning like a maniac, chest heaving and hair wild from his sprint through the woods. Sweat gleamed on his skin, and his eyes were bright.
He belonged here. Against all logic, all tradition, all the careful rules that kept our worlds separate,
And my wolf? My wolf was singing with joy.
I shifted back to human form without conscious thought, the change ripping through me with familiar intensity. But this time, instead of pain, all I felt was anticipation. Need. The desperate want to touch him, to prove to myself that he was real, that he was here, that he'd chosen this madness willingly.
That he'd chosenus.
“You're completely fucking insane,” I gasped, closing the distance between us in three quick strides.
“Yeah, well,” Nate panted, reaching up to cup my face in hands that shook with exhaustion and adrenaline, “you're worth it.”
Then he kissed me.
The first touch of his lips was gentle, questioning—a whispered request that made my heart stutter against my ribs. But when I responded, when I pressed closer and let my hands tangle in his sweat-damp hair, something in him broke open like a dam giving way to flood.
His mouth was warm and desperate against mine, tasting like moonlight and madness. He kissed me like he was drowning and I was air, like he was memorizing the shape of my lips, the way I gasped when his teeth grazed my bottom lip, the sound I made when his hands fisted in my shirt and pulled me impossibly closer.
I kissed him back with years of longing, with every word I'd never been brave enough to speak, with the desperate relief of finally being seen completely. My wolf was singing beneath my skin, pack bonds humming with recognition and approval, and for the first time in my life, every part of me—human and beast, Alpha heir and terrified boy—was in perfect harmony.
This. This was what I'd been waiting for without knowing it. Not just the kiss, though the kiss was perfect enough to rewrite every love song ever written. But this moment, this acceptance, this feeling of every broken piece of me finally clicking into place.
Nate's hands moved to cup my face, thumbs brushing across my cheekbones with a tenderness that made my throat tight with emotion. When he pulled back just enough to look at me, his eyes were bright with tears and wonder and something that looked like love made visible.
“You're real,” he whispered, voice rough with awe. “This is real.”
“Yeah,” I managed, voice cracking on the single syllable. “We're real.”
He laughed then, breathless and bright, and kissed me again. Softer this time, slower, like we had all the time in the world to learn each other, to make up for six years of distance and silence and careful walls.
When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard and probably grinning like idiots, the pack was watching with expressions that ranged from amused to approving to downright smug. Dad, back in human form and casually pulling on clothes, looked like he was trying not to smile.
