"You don't have to tell me. Not yet." She turned back to the hawk, her fingers gentle on the cage bars. "When you're ready, I'll listen." She reached through to stroke the bird's feathers, the offer hanging in the air between us like a promise.
She left after that. I watched her drive away, her scent lingering in the air long after her truck had disappeared around the bend. I didn't stop watching her property after that. Ifanything, I watched more closely, my patrols becoming longer, more thorough. I told myself it was about the developers. About protecting her land, her home, the life she'd built in the bayou.
The truth was that watching her had become the closest thing to peace I'd felt in years. Seeing the lights come on in her cabin at dusk. Hearing her talk to that alligator like he was a person. Catching glimpses of her on the dock in the mornings, coffee in hand, watching the sun rise over the water.
She was alive in a way I'd forgotten people could be. Wild and fierce and completely herself.
I wanted to be near that. Even from a distance. Even if she never knew I was there.
Then she found the stakes.
I was running my usual patrol when I heard her truck barreling down the access road, engine screaming in protest. I went still, fading into the underbrush, watching as she skidded to a stop near her property line. She jumped out with a fistful of orange flags in her hand, her scent sharp with fury, and I knew immediately that she'd figured it out.
All of it. The stakes. The developers. The Alphas who'd been circling her like wolves, keeping secrets, making decisions without her. She stood there for a long moment, staring at the holes in the ground where the stakes had been. Then she lifted her head, and I could have sworn she looked directly at the spot where I was hidden.
"I know you're out there. All of you. I can smell you on these goddamn stakes." Her voice carried across the clearing, flat and dangerous, as she held the orange flags up like evidence. "Consider this your official notice: I'm done being protected without my permission. You want to explain yourselves, you know where to find me." She threw the stakes into the bed of her truck with a clatter, her jaw set hard.
She drove away, and I stayed hidden in the underbrush for a long time after, processing.
She knew. She knew, and she was angry, and she'd called us out with the kind of fearless certainty that made my blood run hot.
I should have gone to her immediately. Explained myself. Apologized. Instead, I went back to the rehabilitation center and waited. Coward's move. I knew it even as I made it. The thought of facing her anger, of seeing the disappointment in her eyes,
The other two would go to her first. Fontenot with his halting words and careful silences. Thibodaux with his charm and easy explanations. They were better at this than I was. Better at being human.
I would go last. Face whatever was left of her fury after the others had their turn. She showed up at the rehabilitation center three days later. I heard her truck—that familiar rattle—and something in my chest clenched. I was in the back, feeding the recovering fox, and I made myself finish the task before walking out to meet her. Controlled. Deliberate. Hiding the way my pulse had started to race.
She was standing by her truck, arms crossed, those green-gold eyes tracking me as I approached. The anger was still there—I could smell it, sharp and acidic under the apple cider—but it had cooled to something more dangerous. Calculation. Assessment.
"Silas." She said my name like a statement and a question all at once, her chin lifted, her stance challenging.
"Artemis." I stopped ten feet away, keeping distance between us, my voice flat and controlled even as my heart hammered against my ribs.
"You knew about the developers." She didn't phrase it as a question, her eyes never leaving my face.
"Yes." I kept my voice level, refusing to offer excuses or explanations. She deserved the truth, even if it damned me.
"How long?" She uncrossed her arms, her hands dropping to her hips, weight shifting like she was preparing for a fight.
"Few weeks. Since I found the first stakes on your property line." My voice came out flat, controlled, the way it always did when I was bracing for impact, and I held her gaze without flinching.
"And you've been watching me. Patrolling my property. Pulling up stakes. All without saying a word." She took a step closer, tilting her head as she studied me like I was a puzzle she was trying to solve.
"Yes." The word scraped out of me, rough and low.
"Why?" She moved closer still, close enough that I could count the freckles on her nose, close enough that her scent wrapped around me like a living thing. The question cracked something open. I stood there, frozen, trying to find words for things I'd never had to explain. Why did I watch her? Why did I protect her from the shadows? Why couldn't I stay away?
"Because you looked at me." I stopped, jaw tight, the words fighting their way out like pulling shrapnel from a wound. "That day with the hawk. You looked at me like I was a person. Not a weapon. Not a monster. A person." My voice came out rough and broken, barely above a whisper, and my hands were shaking at my sides. "Nobody looks at me like that. Nobody sees past the—" I gestured vaguely at myself, at all the broken pieces I'd never been able to put back together.
Her expression shifted. The anger didn't disappear, but something else crept in underneath—something softer, something that made my chest ache.
"You thought watching me from the shadows was the answer? Instead of just... talking to me?" Her voice was gentlernow, though still edged with frustration, and she shook her head slowly.
"I don't know how. Talking. Being around people." The words came out raw and exposed as I met her eyes, letting her see the truth of it. "I know how to watch. How to protect. How to eliminate threats. I don't know how to be someone worth talking to." I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat.
She reached out and took my hand. The contact was electric—warm fingers wrapping around mine, skin against skin. I went rigid, every instinct screaming threat assessment, exit strategy, but I didn't pull away. Couldn't. Her touch anchored me to the moment, to her, to something real and solid in a world that had felt like smoke for years.
"Thursday night. My cabin. You, Fontenot, and Thibodaux. All three of you are going to sit down with me and have an actual conversation. Think you can manage that?" Her voice was steady and certain as she squeezed my hand once, her green-gold eyes holding mine.
