The question surprises me. There’s still so much she doesn’t know.
“There are others,” I say quietly. “Not all of us learned how to live among humans. Some of them prefer it that way.”
I feel the shiver that passes through her. “Is that a normal Wildblood thing?”
I feel her thoughts racing ahead—worrying about the future. Our legacy. Our family.
My hand rises to her jaw, thumb brushing her skin. “There’s nothing in the world that could part me from you.”
After the meeting, we stop at the cafe, and I order food to go. Then, we head to her rocks, sitting among the images for a picnic.
She maps mineral veins. Geological composite.
I mend fences and talk to the cattle, always admiring Josephine from a distance. Her face grows serious mid-concentration. She leans forward to trace a line across a stone. Then, she pauses to mark something in her journal.
But her eyes keep following me when she thinks I’m not looking. Mischief simmering somewhere low.
Finally, I can’t take anymore.
“What are you smiling about, Starlight?” I ask, crossing the distance.
She works to hide a grin.
Then I see it beneath her fingers. Hashes and lines, shadows and highlights. My face and torso rise from the page as if I’m part of the landscape.
“Come here,” I say, sitting down and drawing her between my legs.”
“You like it?”
“It’s good,” I say, taking it in, realizing for the first time in my life I finally feel like I belong.
She smiles, feeling it too.
Human. Happy. Grounded to this Earth and this woman.
But powerful. More powerful than anything I’ve ever felt.
Calm strength, like she said. Shared peace. A shared future, too.
Stabilization didn’t destroy us. It refined us.
Maybe it can refine others, too.
Chapter
Twenty-Five
JOSEPHINE
One Month Later
“You think Martin and Miranda will ever get used to you sitting on this side of the fence?” Ash drawls, leaning against the porch railing and waving.
My grandparents return the gesture from their porch, faces filled with something I still can’t read.
The big cowboy eyes me too warmly, hand clenching and unclenching at his side. I know what he’s thinking: how he wants to pull me into his lap and hold me close.
But out of respect for my family, not in front of them.
