He couldn't let this happen again. Couldn't let himself care about someone the world wanted to destroy.
"I should check the perimeter," Tristan said, stepping back. "Make sure the wards are solid all around."
"In this storm?"
"Won't take long."
He grabbed his coat and left before she could argue, stepping into wind that cut like knives. The cold helped. Cleared his head. Reminded him why getting attached was dangerous.
Every instinct he had disagreed. Fought him with every step away from the cabin.
Away from her.
Tristan circled the safe house twice, testing wards and scanning for threats that weren’t there. When he finally returnedinside, snow-covered and half-frozen, Maren had soup heating over the fire.
"You were gone almost an hour," she said, not looking at him.
"Wards needed checking."
"Right." She ladled soup into bowls. "That's why you ran."
"I didn't run."
"You left like the cabin was on fire." She shifted to face him, silver eyes sharp. "What are you afraid of, Tristan?"
Losing you before I even have you. Watching fear destroy someone I care about again. Admitting what you might mean to me when it should be impossible.
"Nothing you need to worry about," he said.
She nodded slowly. "Alright. But I'm afraid too."
"Of what?"
"That this ends the same way everything else in my life has. With me alone and blamed for things I didn't do." She handed him a bowl. "But it helps. Having someone who doesn't assume the worst."
Tristan took the soup, their fingers brushing again. That spark of heat sharp.
"I won't let it end that way," he said quietly.
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me."
10
MAREN
"Watch me."
It was more than the words, it was the tone. The emotion behind them.
Maren searched Tristan's face for doubt, for the polite distance that usually followed bold statements.
She found neither.
"More tea?" she asked, because the silence had grown too thick.
"Yeah."
