“Don’t be,” I grumble. “Distance is discipline. You taught well.”
“I also taught you something else,” she ventures, looking up at me with clear, perceptive eyes.
I wait, uncertain of where this is going.
“Wildbloods… we’re far more powerful than we know. Not accident. Not abomination. Evolution.”
I nod once.
“Never forget,” she adds so softly I have to lean closer to hear her. “It wasn’t obedience that brought us into being. It was rebellion.”
Chapter
Sixteen
ASH
The mountains vibrate under my skin, low and steady—the same note that thrummed through her mouth when I kissed her.
I’ve been in the saddle since first light, hoping distance will drown what happened at the petroglyphs.
It hasn’t.
I tug a sprig from a nearby pine tree, crush it between my fingers. The resin bites my skin, masking the faint metallic tang that rises whenever that frequency gets too close.
But nothing can mask what I did.
Stupid. Reckless. Unforgivable.
Put Josephine at risk. Myself. Perhaps other Wildbloods.
And all while DHS is breathing down our throats.
An echo of the legend passes through me. Whispered around fires. Never spoken in daylight.
Of the resonance.
The mated pairs.
Catastrophe.
It was never supposed to answer a human.
The tattoos on my chest and arm burn faintly, half-pain, half-yearning. Every few minutes, the ink pulses, as if it remembers her touch. I flex my hand, willing it to stop.
But the resonance is stronger than rules, older than blood. It’s already inside me, circling like wildfire through dry timber.
Wind lifts dust across the valley floor. Each gust carries echoes—her laughter, the quick hitch of her breath, her heartbeat. I swear I can still smell her. Sage, honey, and sin.
“Enough,” I mutter, pressing my knees to the mare’s sides. The horse moves, sure-footed and fast, hooves drumming the hard earth like a heartbeat trying to outrun itself.
I crest the ridge that separates my land from Martin’s. Below, the ranch lies quiet, the roof glinting with dew.
And there she is—on the porch, wrapped in a dusty rose quilt, watching the same sunrise. I can almost smell the scent of rain and ozone when our lips met. Like I couldn’t tell where the rain ended, and she began.
Even from this distance, I feel the pull.
The hum spikes through my spine, sharp enough to steal my breath. For a heartbeat, I think the mountain is calling me home.
