Leon’s smile was slow, lazy, and utterly fake. “Darling, I just let you rail me into the mattress. Surely I’m allowedsomemystery.”
Karl huffed a soft laugh, but didn’t allow himself to be deflected. “You don’t need mystery with me,” he said softly. “Not unless you want to.”
That earned him silence for a long moment. Leon turned his head toward the ceiling, eyes distant, and Karl let him have it. Pushed his hand up into Leon’s hair instead, brushing it gently back from his face. It was slightly damp at his temples, and Karl marveled again at how soft it was.
“What is it you want to talk about?” Leon asked at last. Still guarded, with that subtle tension threaded through him, but more open than he had been.
“What we do now,” Karl said, and then he hesitated. Because he didn’t want to leave the pack. God, he didn’t want to, but at the same time, he wasn’t letting Leon leave him behind.
Karl didn’t need anyone besides his pack. He was perfectly capable of living his life alone. But then there’d been Leon, who’d taught him how to want, to feel. To know he wasalive.
He cleared his throat. “Your sister probably won’t stay more than a few days. I figured I’d go back with you.”
Leon snapped his head round, his gaze pinning Karl like he wasn’t sure he’d heard right.
Karl shrugged. “It makes sense. You’ve got work. A life.” He hesitated. “I’ll need to give Matt notice, obviously, and sort some things out here, but—”
He stopped, confused by the look Leon was giving him.
“You’d leave the ranch? Yourpack?” Leon asked, voice strained. “For me?”
Karl frowned faintly. “Of course.”
Leon was still looking at him like he’d just rewritten the laws of physics.
Karl ran his hand up the length of Leon’s arm. “What?”
“You’d leave here,” Leon said slowly, “just like that.”
Karl shook his head. “Not just like that,” he said. Because leaving here would be a wound he’d always carry. “This is my pack, my family. But…” Without conscious volition, he stilled his hand from its stroking, until it was resting against Leon’s skin. Feeling his warmth. “You’re my future.”
Leon’s gaze flicked away, then back again. Less like a cat ready to pounce and more like one caught off guard and covering that fact. And yeah, there it was again—that soft wall going up behind his eyes. Not rejection, not even uncertainty, just… retreat. A reflexive recoil from something that was too close.
Karl let out a slow breath and adjusted his position slightly so he could prop himself on one elbow beside Leon. He didn’t push. Just watched him, and waited. Eventually, Leon held his gaze, but he still said nothing.
So Karl changed the subject to give him space. He touched the small ring on a chain around Leon’s neck that he’d noticed earlier but had been too intent on other things to ask about.
“What’s this?”
Leon’s hand came up to cover Karl’s, fingers warm and firm. But he didn’t pull away. He just held them both there, over the chain resting on his chest.
“It’s from Luna,” Leon said after a moment. “She gave it to me when…” He stopped. Swallowed. “When they sent me away.”
Karl didn’t move. Just waited, feeling tension pulsing through Leon’s arm where they touched.
“I didn’t even know what was happening,” Leon continued, voice quiet now. “I came home from school and there was a bag packed. No explanation, no warning. Just—‘you’re going to live with Grandpa for a while.’” His laugh was short and sharp. “Except ‘a while’ turned out to be the rest of my damn childhood.
“They never said it outright, but it was obvious—everyone else in the pride was a cougar. And then there was me. You don’t get much more of a reminder of my mom’s affair than that, both for my parents and the whole damn pride.”
His voice was flat, but Karl could hear the echoes beneath it—the disbelief, the betrayal, the bone-deep ache.
“It’s why I—why I started grooming so carefully. If I had to be different, I’d bebetter.If I was going to be an outsider, I’d be anicon.”
He laughed, bitter and low. And Karl saw it, then—how the preening and deliberate style weren’t just vanity, but armor. Leon wore pride to smother shame.
Karl’s heart broke a little. “You already were an icon.”
That pulled Leon’s gaze back to him—startled, almost angry. “You didn’t evenlikeme when I got here.”
