I don’t even go for my usual whine or anything. I can’t muster it.
She opens the door wider. “Come on in. Do you want to watch TV with me?”
I step inside, and she smiles at me with so much trust. It’s the kind of smile you don’t get often in life, one that’s meant for you, because she’s happy you’re there.
It hits me harder than it should.
One day soon, I’m going to leave. I’ll have to. The alphas will come. Or Froggy will get bold. Or someone will notice she lives with a wolf the size of a pony.
This isn’t permanent.
And yet.
I lie down next to her on the couch, head on her knee.
She laughs softly. “You’re such a good boy.”
No. No, I’m not.
I’m a man pretending to be a dog.
A fugitive.
A shifter with a bounty on his head.
And I’m falling for a woman who doesn’t even know what I am.
She strokes the fur between my ears and hums along with the TV.
My heart cracks, because I realize there will come a day very soon when I’ll never get to hear that laugh again. Never get to see that smile. Never get to feel her hand in my fur or her breath against my cheek.
And the thought terrifies me.
Chapter 14
Violet
I’m not brave.
People think I am because surviving something dramatic and awful looks heroic from the outside. Because I get out of bed every morning and pretend like the world still fits me. Because I walk grocery store aisles with a cane, ride horses again, and live alone despite the fact that everything in my life changed overnight. But bravery isn’t the big things. It’s the tiny, invisible battles no one sees. The moments that feel stupid and small to everyone else but swallow you whole from the inside. The places where fear sneaks into your ribs and settles there, heavy, familiar.
Bravery is standing still when every part of you wants to run. It’s lifting your chin when you’d rather curl inward. It’s taking one more step into a world that stopped looking familiar a long time ago. And some days? Bravery is as simple—and as impossibly hard—as choosing to keep going.
It’s also standing in my kitchen with trembling fingers, debating whether to send a text.
Since my accident, I haven’t flirted with anyone. Hell, I haven’t even been attracted to anyone. I haven’t had the urge to have someone in my space. To share this side of me that I don’treally understand myself yet. But that infatuated feeling I have for Human-Jason really turned to something more the other night during our cooking lesson. There was definitely heat and sparks, and it had nothing to do with the stove. I started tofeelsomething, and I’m sure he did too.
Which has led me to this moment.
My heartbeat is loud—soloud—like someone pressed Meemaw’s megaphone right up against my ribs. Every thump echoes inside me, a hollow, trembling drumbeat I can’t outrun. My hands are damp; my grip on the phone keeps slipping. Sweat gathers at my hairline even though the kitchen is cool, a bead rolling down my temple like my body wants to betray me in every possible way.
My breath feels too shallow. My throat too tight. How can a text—a few words on a screen—feel scarier than flames, hospitals, or relearning my entire life? But it does. Because this isn’t survival. This is vulnerability.
I let the app read the message back to me, because hearing the words helps me decide if I’m about to humiliate myself.
“Would you… want to come over for dinner tonight? I thought it might be nice to cook something myself. No lessons today. Just… dinner.”
My whole face scrunches, like I can physically wrinkle the awkward out of the sentence. “Just dinner. Oh my god, what’s wrong with me?”
