“I decided so long ago never to tell anybody. But you’re right, you should know what’s happening to me. Fading as a wolf is hard and awful. It really hurts. I miss my gifts. I feel like half a wolf without my voice, with only words. I want to feel it in my chest again. The wolf voice. I don’t know if I ever will. You need to know because the loss of all this is so big inside me, and because mates should be honest, and because if you decide to have me, you might get only half a wolf. I’m sorry I kept it from you. Everything in this letter is everything I kept back. This will be hard to read, but when I finish reading it, I’ll be glad for you to know it all.”
He lifted his head, his eyes clear and calm, his face wide open to her. Kelsey swiped her cheeks, but her tears kept falling. Maggie had been right. Her wolf had tried to tell her. Her wolf had been hurting and scared. She took the letter from his hands and folded it and held it close.
“I’m keeping this,” she said.
“Um…if you want to.”
“It’s a treasure. It’s your heart.”
“It’s some really bad writing.” His mouth tilted.
“Bite your tongue. I love this letter, Trevor.”
He shrugged. No doubt, if his face weren’t already flushed with fever, he’d be blushing. “If you say so.”
“And thank you for trusting me. With your hurt and with your heart. I hope I can hold it well, as your mate.”
Trevor’s arms enfolded her. His breadth took up too much room for her to fit beside him on the cushion, but he wouldn’t let her go. She climbed into his lap and tried not to jostle his rib. The heat of the fever seeped into her through their clothes, but she stayed in his arms, her back to his chest, her head resting below his collarbone. One wrong move and they’d tilt off the couch in a heap.
“How long will you be sick?” she said.
“No telling. If you ask Arlo, you and I are a unique case.”
“But…I’m not leaving. I’m yours.” Maybe if she said the words in a dozen different ways, his wolf physiology or fate or something would hear her and break the fever. “You don’t have to be sick anymore.”
“It’s okay, Kels. It’ll pass.” A smile filled his voice. “It can take a week for all I care.”
“Nota week.”
“Whatever.” He lifted his head but not his voice. “Y’all can stop hovering on the porch.”
Oh—oh. The front door opened and shut, and Malachi entered the room, his eyes glad. Maggie followed, crying and grinning.
“You couldn’t hear us,” Kelsey said, pointing at her aunt.
“Malachi summarized. Oh, you dear kids, I’m so happy.”
The four of them spent the rest of the day together, and Kelsey stuck by her mate’s side even while he slept, which was most of the day. Around six Malachi took him home, and Kelsey saw why he’d been the one to convey her wolf to her. The alpha didn’t need a fireman’s carry, didn’t support him on one side while Trevor struggled on his feet. Instead Malachi lifted Trevor from the couch, his arms a cradle, as though Trevor’s six-foot-five musclebound frame weighed no more than a child’s. No wonder he could catch a kettlebell with one hand.
With Trevor settled in the truck, half-dozing and still feverish, Malachi returned to Maggie’s door, where Kelsey waited to wave goodbye.
“He’ll be well cared for,” Malachi said. “As long as it takes, but I don’t expect it to be long.”
“Did you notice anything today? I mean, did his scent…get better? Or anything like that?”
Malachi’s mouth tilted up. “You’ve brought him joy. It’s in his scent even while he sleeps.”
“Oh.” Tears rose in her eyes. “Thanks.”
“He’ll be well soon, Kels. Until then he’ll have Ezra fretting over him, and by Wednesday morning he’ll have Ann and Robert too. And the other wolves if we need a rotation, if this lasts, but it won’t.”
Her mate would be well soon. She belonged with him, no more room for doubt. She was his, and he was hers. She said quietly, “Until and beyond the falling of the moon.”
Malachi cocked one red-blond eyebrow. “You’re ready for that now?”
“Huh?” She’d never heard the phrase in her life. It had come from nowhere, though it fit, given how wolves instinctively tracked the moon. And it was sort of poetic, unlike herself.
“The final phrase of the bonding ceremony,” Malachi said. “You just spoke it.”
