Hannah’s throat tightened as she remembered what had happened after they’d made love. Standing in the moonlight. The crackle of energy. The massive bear standing where Caleb had been moments before. The revelation that had changed everything:You are my mate.
She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the enormity of it. Shifters. Magic. Mates. A bond that supposedly tied them together for eternity.
Was she willing to accept this as her fate? To give up the life she’d planned for herself, the independence she’d fought so hardto maintain? To belong to someone — to something larger than herself — she hadn’t chosen?
But you did choose,a quiet voice reminded her.Last night, when you led him upstairs. Then, when he revealed himself to you completely, and didn’t run.
But that was last night when she’d been swept along by the strength of her emotions, longing, desire... love. And now it was morning, and she had to think clearly. Practically.
She couldn’t do that when he was so close. So close she could reach out and touch him, stroke his skin, kiss his lips, make love to him again.
Hannah slipped from the bed, her movements slow and deliberate. Caleb stirred slightly but didn’t wake. She picked up his discarded shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head, the fabric still carrying his scent. It reminded her of pine trees and mountain air and something uniquely him — something wild and primitive.
She closed her eyes and recalled the image of the bear bathed in moonlight. It was the most incredible thing she had ever seen. But she could not let the magic of that moment, or any other she’d spent with Caleb, and there had been plenty of them, sway her.
Clear head. That meant coffee.
The wooden stairs creaked softly beneath her bare feet as she made her way downstairs. In the kitchen, Hannah moved to the coffee maker, finding comfort in the familiar ritual of measuring grounds, filling the reservoir with water, and pressing the brew button. As the machine gurgled to life, she leaned against the counter, her gaze drifting around the room.
There, on the side table, sat the small cardboard box containing her car part. The key to her freedom. The ticket back to her carefully constructed life.
Hannah crossed the room and picked up the box, feeling its weight in her hands. So small, so ordinary, yet it represented everything she’d been working toward. Stability. Control. Self-reliance. The life she’d planned in Slateford, with its sensible apartment and steady job.
All she had to do was take this to Roy, let him fix her car, and get back on the road to Slateford. This was all she needed to return to her plan, to the life she had mapped out so carefully.
But standing there, holding the physical embodiment of her departure, Hannah felt something shift inside her. The box suddenly felt heavier than it should, as if weighed down by all she would be leaving behind.
Was this really what she wanted? To walk away from the friends she’d made here? To return to the solitary existence she’d crafted, where safety came at the price of connection?
Her old habits had kept her safe, yes. They’d been armor against disappointment, against the pain of caring too much. But they’d also kept her lonely, separate, always at a careful distance from the messy, beautiful entanglement of truly belonging somewhere.
To someone.
Hannah set the box back on the table with deliberate care. The coffee maker had finished brewing, filling the kitchen with its rich aroma. She took two mugs from the cabinet and filled them both with coffee.
With a mug in each hand, she made her way back upstairs, her heart beating a little faster with each step. Was this it? Had she decided to stay?
As she pushed the bedroom door open with her shoulder, Caleb’s gaze immediately found hers. He was sitting up now, the sheet pooled around his waist, his expression a careful mask that couldn’t quite hide the tension in his shoulders, the wariness in his eyes.
Hannah smiled, and the change in him was immediate. His body relaxed, a sigh escaping him as if he’d been holding his breath since waking to find her gone.
“Did you think I was leaving?” she asked, crossing the room to place the coffee cups on the nightstand.
Caleb watched her every movement, his eyes never leaving her face. “When I woke and you were gone...” His voice trailed off, the unfinished sentence hanging between them.
Hannah slipped back into bed beside him, the mattress dipping beneath her weight. She placed her hand on his chest, feeling the steady, strong beat of his heart beneath her palm. “I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye,” she whispered.
He lifted his hand to her face, fingers gentle as he stroked her cheek. “Does that mean you’re staying?” The question held so much more than those simple words... hope, fear, longing.
Hannah leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, answering with a kiss. “Yes,” she whispered against his mouth.
The word had barely left her lips before Caleb scooped her into his arms, pulling her against his chest as he kissed her deeply. She could feel his joy, his relief, his desire all mingled together in the press of his lips against hers.
“I cannot tell you how happy I am,” he murmured against her skin as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.
Hannah smiled, feeling the evidence of his happiness pressing insistently against her thigh. “I think I can tell,” shesaid, her voice low and teasing as she shifted her position slightly.
She reached between them, curling her fingers around his length. His breath hissed between his teeth as she stroked him, his eyes darkening with desire. Hannah watched his face, fascinated by the play of emotions across his features—pleasure, need, desire.
