“Kier…” I don’t know what I’m going to say. Don’t know how to respond to such raw honesty.
He leans back in his chair, completely relaxed, a small smile playing at his lips as he watches me process his words. There’s nothing but warm affection in his expression—no recognition, no sudden awareness, just the same easy companionship we’ve been building over these past days.
“You’re staring again,” he observes, that familiar teasing note in his voice.
But I can barely hear him over the roaring in my ears. Something is happening—something fundamental shifting inside me as I look at his face in the firelight.
My wolf lifts her head, suddenly alert. She tastes the air, her attention sharpening with laser focus.
What is it?I ask her silently.
She doesn’t answer in words. Instead, she sends me an image, a feeling, a bone-deep certainty that makes my blood sing.
Mine.
The thought doesn’t come from me. It comes from her, from some primal part of myself that recognizes truth when it sees it.
Ours.
The realization hits me like a physical blow. I stare at Kier—really look at him—and everything suddenly makes sense. The way I felt safe with him from the very beginning. The electric current that runs between us whenever we touch. The way my wolf has been calling for him, trying to tell me something I was too stubborn to hear.
Mate.
The word echoes through my mind, not thought but known. Ancient, primal, undeniable.
Kier is my mate.
“Lithia?” His voice seems to come from very far away. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. Can barely think past the overwhelming certainty flooding through me.
He’s completely oblivious. Still leaning back in his chair, still wearing that easy smile, completely unaware that my entire world just tilted off its axis.
My wolf is singing, practically vibrating with joy and certainty. She’s known, I realize. Maybe not from the beginning, but she’s been trying to tell me.
“No,” I breathe, the word barely audible.
“No what?” Kier asks, leaning forward with concern. “Lithia, what’s wrong?”
He doesn’t know.The thought is both relief and terror.He doesn’t feel it.
But my wolf is insistent, pressing at me—Kier’s scent, the way he’s cared for me, the rightness of being near him. She’s absolutely certain, and wolves don’t make mistakes about these things.
The knowledge sits in my chest like a stone, heavy and undeniable. Kier is my mate. This complicated, infuriating, wonderful man is the other half of my soul.
And he has absolutely no idea.
“I need air,” I say abruptly, standing so fast my chair topples backward.
I flee the cabin like something is chasing me, bursting out into the cool night air. But I can’t outrun the truth burning in my chest.
Mate. Mine. Ours.
My wolf’s certainty echoes through me, and for the first time since our parents died, she’s completely, utterly, joyfully sure of something.
I just wish I could say the same.
Chapter
