He moves with ease, flipping slices of pork belly with silver tongs, sliding kimchi onto my plate like it’s second nature.
No rush.No awkwardness.
Just care.Attention.Steady hands that hold mine a little too long when passing a bowl.
“You always feed women like this?”I tease, eyes on the grilled garlic he’s turning just for me.
“Only the ones I bite,” he says, not missing a beat.
My breath catches.
He looks up.His gold eyes burning across the fire.Like he’s ready to crawl across the table and claim me all over again.
“I meant what I said, Megan,” he murmurs.“You’re it for me.Mine.”
And God help me—I want to be.
Even though I’m a Jersey girl with resting bitch face and control issues.
Even though I’m here to do a job that could mean the end of Arrhythmia.
And even if it doesn’t, well, I still don’t know the first thing about being mated to a Wolf or living in a town where the top five tourist attractions are haunted, cursed, or both.
I still want to be his, because even though I don’t trust easily.Idotrust him.
And somehow, here—eating sizzling meat in a secret BBQ joint full of monsters—I don’t feel like an outsider.
I feel like his.
I feelhome.
Chapter19
Owen
All I want to do is take my mate home.
To strip her out of that blouse that still smells like meat smoke and deliciousnessand us.
To curl her against my chest like a promise and forget—for just one damn night—that we’re sitting on the edge of a Hellmouth with a cursed estate full of shadows breathing down our necks.
But duty’s a bitch.
And in Arrhythmia, she wears fishnet tights and rings the damn town bell at odd hours just to mess with me.
So, we stop by the station.
Megan doesn’t complain.
Hell, she even brushes her fingers along the back of my hand as we walk in—like it’s no big deal.
Like it’s natural.
Like we’ve always done this.
And that small gesture?It lodges itself under my ribs and stays there.
She’s perfect for me.
