“Not stupid.” I reached across the table, covered his hand with mine. His fingers were cold. “I did the same thing after Claire died. Spent hours in the room where she passed, just... talking. Waiting for an answer that never came.”
“Did it help?”
“No. Yes. I don't know.” I turned his hand over, traced the lines of his palm with my thumb. “But I wasn't alone. I had the pack. I had Evan, even when he was too young to understand. You've been doing this by yourself, and that's on me. I should have been here.”
“You're here now.”
I looked at Michael, at the shadows under his eyes and the grief carved into his features, and felt something shift in my chest. Something that had been locked away for fifteen years, slowly working itself loose.
“I'm here now,” I agreed. “And I'm not leaving until I know you're okay.”
“Daniel...”
“Don't argue with me. You're not winning this one.” I stood, moved around the table, pulled him to his feet before he couldprotest. I steered him toward the couch, pushed him down onto the cushions with gentle insistence. “Stay. I'm making you food.”
“You don't have to.”
“I know I don't have to.” I paused in the kitchen doorway, looked back at him. “I want to.”
His expression did something complicated. Softened around the edges, warmed in ways that made my chest tight. “You're very bossy.”
I started opening cabinets, looking for something that could become a meal. “And you're very stubborn. So I guess we're even.”
I heard him laugh. Just a breath, barely a sound, but it was the first real laugh I'd heard from him in weeks. It settled something in me that had been restless since the clearing, since holding him in my arms and feeling his heart beat against mine and knowing that I'd almost lost him.
I made eggs. It was all he had that didn't require more effort than I was willing to give. Scrambled with cheese, toast on the side, coffee refilled because he clearly needed it. I brought the plate to him on the couch, sat down close enough that our shoulders touched.
“Eat,” I said.
“Bossy.”
“Stubborn.”
He ate. I watched. The house settled around us, old bones creaking, and outside the forest pressed close against the windows. Watching. Always watching.
But for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like I was carrying everything alone.
The pack housewas quiet when I got back, most wolves out on patrol or resting between shifts. I headed for my office, intending to finish the territorial assessments I'd abandoned, but stopped when I saw light bleeding from under the library door.
Rafe.
I knew it before I pushed the door open. Could smell him, wolf and something sharper underneath. Fear, maybe. Or pain he was trying to hide.
He was curled in one of the reading chairs by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket that looked like it might have been Evan's, a book open on his lap. But his eyes weren't on the pages. They were fixed on the window, watching the darkness outside like he expected something to come through it.
He startled when I walked in. Actually flinched, whole body going rigid before he recognized me and forced himself to relax.
“Hey.” His voice came out rough. Unsteady. “Thought you'd gone to bed.”
“Couldn't sleep. You?”
“Same.” He tried to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. “Kept hearing things. Probably just the wind, but...”
He didn't finish. Didn't need to. I knew what he meant. When you'd been hunted, every sound became a threat. Every shadow became teeth.
That's when I noticed the blood.
Dark stain spreading through the bandage on his shoulder, seeping into the blanket he'd wrapped around himself. Fresh. Still wet.
