“Buck!” Ignatius’s aggrieved voice cut through the stillness like a buzz saw. “Shouldn’t Finley and Archie be back by now?”
“Oh, for the love of dog,” Buck growled. The hammock swayed as he sat up. “Archie! If you’re pissing around out there, it had better be literally!”
There was the hasty scuffle of pants being quickly pulled back up. “Just finishing!”
“Sorry, Buck!” Finley called. As the boys returned to their tent, he whispered, “Itoldyou not to try to cover that grizzly’s scent mark.”
“Archie!” Claire said from the girls’ tent. “Gross!”
“I wasn’t doing anything!” Archie’s protest of innocence would have been a lot more convincing if he hadn’t followed it up with a muttered, “Icouldhave covered it, if you’d agreed to lift me up higher.”
“Archie, there are limits on my friendship.”
“Some of us aretryingtosleep.” A rustling sound, as of an aggrieved dragon shifter turning over and stuffing his head under a pillow. “You disgusting savages.”
“The next person who makes a noise,” Buck announced to the world in general, “gets dragged out of their sleeping bag at four in the morning to run a lap round the field while belting out an enthusiastic chorus of Puff the Motherloving Dragon.”
A pause.
“I don’t know that one,” Claire whispered to the other girls.
“Then you’ll be getting up at the asscrack of dawn every morning until you do,” Buck growled. “Heads down, eyes closed, mouths shut.Now.”
The silence took on the specific texture of six children carefully not making a sound. Honey didn’t dare speak, though for very different reasons. Her heart thundered in her ears.
Buck remained sitting bolt upright for a moment, glaring in the direction of the tents. Muttering under his breath, he slid back down, gathering her in his arms again. They both lay still, neither daring to speak, as the children’s pointed silence turned into the more natural sounds of slumber.
At last, Buck stirred. He pushed a hand into her hair, twisting it round his fingers.
“Honey.” His hand slipped round, tracing the curve of her cheek; uncharacteristically tentative, as though trying to find his way through a maze in the dark. “We both know you can’t stay here. But when you go back to Chicago, I thought maybe… if you wanted… I could go with you.”
With an effort, she held onto the reins of her surging hope. “You mean, to visit?”
His palm cupped the back of her neck. He drew her down until their foreheads touched; until she could see his eyes, soft and black and sure.
“No,” he whispered.
Her breath caught. He wanted to come back with her. He wanted to them to be together; not just here, but in the real world.
No more pretending. No more secrets. She could never be a shifter, could never belong to this magical place… but she could have him.
He must have read her answer in her face, because his lips crooked up. He shifted a little, angling his mouth to hers—and moonlight flashed in his eyes.
That feral gleam brought her back to reality with a bump. She stiffened, pulling away. Buck let her go, eyebrows knotting in confusion.
“It won’t work, Buck.” She put a hand to his mouth as he drew in his breath. “What would you do in Chicago? You need space, and wilderness, and…”
A pack, she wanted to say, but she knew he would never agree with that. He was already shaking his head, forehead twisting into that stubborn scowl she’d come to know so well, and love even more.
“You need a purpose,” she rushed on before he had time to object. “And Zephyr needs you. Your family, your friends, your whole life… it’s all here. I can’t ask you to give that up. This is where you belong.”
The hammock lurched as he twisted. For a dizzying moment, Honey was sure they were both about to be pitched out, straight onto the rocky ground, but Buck caught her. His hard weight pinned her, pressed against the entire length of her body.
“Youare where I belong,” he growled.
He kissed her hard, silencing any objection. All her rational arguments melted away under the heat of his mouth. She was right, she knew she was right… but she couldn’t deny that this was right too.
“Do you think she’ll say yes?”
