“After you’ve delivered your warning. After the rescue, if it happens. What then?”
The question catches me off guard. I’ve been so focused on getting back, on completing my duty, that I haven’t thought beyond it.
“I go back to being Beta,” I say finally. “My job is to protect the pack. I need to make sure nothing like this happens again.”
And atone for my failure.
Kier nods, returning his attention to his food.
“And you?” I ask.
He shrugs, a casual gesture that doesn’t quite hide the tension in his frame. “Continue my nomad ways, I suppose. There’s always someone looking for a tracker.”
The thought of him simply walking away after everything we’ve been through sends an unexpected pang through my chest. My wolf whines, pressing against my consciousness.
Stay, she urges.
I push the feeling aside. “You’d be welcome in Shadowmist,” I hear myself say. “After helping me escape, Ryker will grant you a place in the pack.”
Kier’s eyes flick up to meet mine, his usual smirk tugging at his mouth—but it’s thinner this time, like a thread pulled too tight. Behind the sarcasm, I catch it, a flicker of something raw, aching, so quickly masked I almost doubt I saw it at all.
“You sure? Packs aren’t usually keen on taking in strays.”
He’s bracing himself, pretending he doesn’t care, pretending he’s used to the door closing. But his eyes—gods, his eyes—betray him.
“You’re not a stray,” I say more sharply than intended. “You’re a…” I struggle for the right word. Friend seems inadequate. Partner too intimate. “An ally,” I finish lamely.
A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “An ally. Is that what we are, Lithia?”
There’s a challenge in his tone that makes my pulse quicken. “What would you call us, then?”
He studies me for a long moment, something unreadable in his gaze. “I’m not sure there’s a name for what we are.”
The air between us feels suddenly charged, heavy with things unsaid. I break eye contact first, returning to my food with forced casualness.
“Well, whatever we are,” I say, “you’ll always have a place with Shadowmist. Come, go, stay, leave, doesn’t matter to us. We’ll always welcome you.”
He doesn’t answer immediately, and when I glance up, he’s watching me with an intensity that makes my skin warm.
“Thank you,” he says finally.
We finish the meal in silence, the unspoken tension gradually easing into our usual comfortable companionship. As night deepens, the temperature drops, reminding us that winter’s chill is approaching.
Kier adds wood to the fire, the flames casting his face in warm light and dancing shadows. The firelight catches in his dark copper hair, highlighting strands of premature silver threaded through the waves.
At thirty-eight, he’s only a few years older than myself. But we’ve a world of experience between us. I’ve seen battle, I’ve lost loved ones—and so has he. But the last three years sit on his shoulders and burrow under his skin, marking him in ways I’ll never understand.
I watch him, a now-familiar warmth spreading through my chest. It’s a feeling I’ve been fighting since our escape. A pull that goes beyond gratitude or camaraderie.
My wolf has no doubts about what it means. She recognized him immediately, knew him for what he was to useven through the prison walls. But I’ve spent too many years guarding my heart to surrender to instinct so easily.
“We should sleep,” Kier says, breaking into my thoughts. “Tomorrow will be busy.”
I nod, moving to the bed we’ve shared these past days. The mattress is lumpy and smells faintly of mildew despite our best efforts to clean it, but it’s still better than the stone floor of a prison cell.
Kier takes his time banking the fire, checking the doors and windows one last time before joining me. The bed creaks as he settles beside me, his warmth seeping through the thin barrier of our clothes.
“Lithia,” he says softly, “if you’re not ready?—”
