The river runs on. Moonlight moves on the water. The frogs are loud and insistent, filling every gap in the conversation with noise that’s strangely soothing. It takes the pressure off the silence, makes it feel less loaded.
“I thought about you,” he says, not looking at me. “Every day. I know that doesn’t mean what I want it to mean. I know it doesn’t fix anything. But I thought about you every day, and I need you to know that, even if it doesn’t matter.”
I should shut this down. The same way I shut down the conversation on the ridge. Hard, clean, a door slammed before anything can get through.
But it’s midnight, and I’m tired. Bone-deep tired. An exhaustion that goes past muscle and blood and settles into the part of you that decides what’s worth fighting. And this man sitting three feet away just told me something honest without asking for anything in return. And I’m so unused to people giving me things without wanting something back that I don’t know what to do with it.
“It matters,” I say. “I wish it didn’t. But it does.” The words come out before I can stop them. I want to take them back. I also don’t.
Merric turns his head. Looks at me.
I look back.
The moonlight does something to his face that I remember from a long time ago. Strips away the years, the scars, the accumulated armor, and shows me the young man who sat with me on a hillside outside Frostbourne and told me I was the only thing in his life that made the wolf quiet. I told him that was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me. He told me it wasn’t meant to be romantic; it was just true. Then I kissed him because I didn’t know how else to answer that kind of honesty.
That was before the elders. Before the ultimatum. Before things ended in a field.
“Brenna.” The way he says it now is nothing like the way he said it on the battlefield. This one’s stripped bare. Just my name and everything underneath it.
“Don’t,” I say, but the word is hollow.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re looking at me.”
“I’ve always been looking at you. Even when you weren’t there to see it.”
The space between us has contracted. I don’t remember either of us moving. Three feet became two, became something less, and his face is close now. I can see the scar on his jaw, the one he earned when his wolf was first blooded. The one I loved when we were young and stupid. When the world hadn’t taught us the cost of wanting things.
My wolf lunges for the surface. Not gently. A full-body slam toward him, toward the scent that’s been making her restless since the ridge. Pine resin and iron and cold stone. And underneath it, something I’d forgotten—warmth. Real warmth.The kind that isn’t fire or magic but just a man’s skin carrying heat in the night air. And I hadn’t realized how long I’d been cold until it hit me.
I should move. No… Imustmove. Stand up and walk away. Add this to the list of things I can’t afford.
I don’t.
He lifts his hand. Slowly. Carefully. Like I might disappear if he breathes too hard. His fingers brush the side of my jaw. Light. Barely there.
I close my eyes.
His mouth finds mine.
It’s not the kiss I remember from our past. That one was young and reckless and tasted like summer. This one is slow. Cautious. It carries the regret of our history, and neither of us is pretending it doesn’t. His hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck, and I feel the calluses on his palm, rough and new. And then my hand is on his chest before I know I’ve moved it. His heart under my palm, steady and hard, and my own heart pounding in my throat.
And the bond wakes up.
Not a gentle stirring. Not the faint tug I’ve been clamping down on for days. It bursts back to life like a furnace door thrown open—heat and recognition and a pull so deep it feels like my bones are trying to rearrange themselves to fit against his. My whole body lights up. My magic flares, white fire tracing my fingertips where they press against his shirt, and I feel his wolf respond, a low, thunderous resonance that vibrates through the place where our mouths meet.
No!
I pull back. Hard. Fast. My hand leaves his chest, and I’m on my feet. There are six feet between us before my next breath.
He stays where he is. Doesn’t chase. His hand hangs in the space where my face was a second ago, and his face—
I can’t look at his face. If I do, I’m going to sit back down.
“That doesn’t change anything.” My voice is rough. But I’m wrong. It changes everything, and we both know it. Except I’ll die before I admit that out loud. “The bond—whatever that was—it’s not real. It’s residual. Instinct and proximity and—”
“Brenna.”
