He cut himself off, swearing under his breath. Then I felt his hands on mine again, gentle this time.
“Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse, “hey, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I don’t know how todothis, okay? I saw that bruise and— I thought about someone hurting you, and I just— I lost it.”
He looked like he was about to crawl out of his own skin, and my fingers curled around his.
“I’m okay,” I said through a wobbly voice. “Really.”
“You don’t have to be,” Koa murmured. “You don’t have to say that for our sake. You don’t have to lie or hide anything.”
“You’re safe now.” Casimir’s chin rested on the crown of my head. “No one’s going to hurt you again.”
“I pushed him,” I admitted, the words slipping out in a rush. “Mr. Storms. I pushed him into the lake.”
“And he grabbed you trying to keep his balance.” Koa stood, his jaw tight. “I remember. That’s what left the mark. I’ll fetch the arnica cream.”
“Grab a compression wrap, too,” Casimir said.
As Koa disappeared in a blur of motion, Zane blew out a breath, his hands still holding mine, but his gaze stayed on my knees.
“We weren’t raised to know what to do with something beautiful. We were only ever taught how to fight, how to kill.” He looked up at me then, serious for once. “But I’m learning.We’relearning. We’ll figure it out, darling. Just give us time.”
“Me, too.” I rubbed my thumb over his fingers. “I’m still learning, too.”
“You’re already better at it than us.” Casimir’s voice was gruff.
Zane bent to kiss the bruise as gently as a butterfly landing on my wrist, and my breath caught.
“See? Already learning how to handle delicate things.” His wink held a softer edge than his usual mischief. “Told you we’re teachable.”
I blinked, suddenly unsure what to do with all this gentleness. It didn’t feel like the jagged edges of survival I’d known before. It was soft and safe and warm.
Let them be kind. Let them be decent. And please, please, don’t let them hurt me.
They didn’t know that prayer, the one I whispered to the Moon Goddess over and over on my way to Evermere, but they were answering it all the same.
I tucked that warmth away, quiet and glowing, like a candle lit behind my ribs. Just in case the dark ever came calling again.
#
Once Koa applied the salve and Casimir checked to make sure it didn’t need to be wrapped, we went on with the tour. We started with the new security room, which was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Monitors lined the walls, their screens flickering with maps and footage of the estate. In the center of the room stood a sleek, metallic table that looked like it belonged in a sci-fi movie.
Koa stepped forward, his espresso eyes shining as he gestured to it.
“This is a holographic display table. Here.”
When he handed me a pair of glasses, I slipped them on, and the world shifted. Suddenly, Evermere unfolded before me in three dimensions, the manor, the forests, even the pond shimmering in the sunlight. I gasped, reaching out as if I could touch it.
“Oh!” My fingers dug into Casimir’s collar as I took in the impossible detail. A sapphire butterfly landed on my virtual fingertips. “It’s like magic made real, Koko!”
Koa’s fingers brushed mine as he guided my hand through the hologram, sending ripples across digital tree canopies.
“Try pinching two fingers together.”
I did, and the estate shrank until I held the entire valley in my cupped hand. Back home, our single computer could barely load seed catalogs.
“This is incredible,” I breathed. “I didn’t even know things like this existed, Koko.”
“It’s still a work in progress, but it’ll be fully operational soon.”
