Patrick’s chest rises and falls beneath my cheek in a steady rhythm. His arm is wrapped around my shoulders, keeping me tucked against his side like he’s afraid I might slip away. I trace the scar on his forearm with idle fingers, following the raised line of tissue from his elbow to his wrist. The skin there is puckered and pale. That wound must have been deep to leave such a mark.
“How’d you get this?” I ask, my voice drowsy and content.
“Training accident. A long time ago.”
I make a soft sound of acknowledgment and keep running my fingers along the scar. My mind is drifting, loose and unfocused in that pleasant post-orgasm haze, but one thought keeps circling back no matter how hard I try to push it away.
Is this what Sera was trying to describe?
When my sister talked about meeting Reeyan, about the way her wolf recognized him instantly, she struggled to put it into words. She said it was like finding a piece of herself she didn’t know was missing. Like coming home to a place she’d never been before. I thought she was being dramatic at the time, that she was swept up in the novelty of being able to feel emotions after three centuries of magical suppression. I smiled and nodded and secretly wondered if she was exaggerating.
But lying here in Patrick’s arms, with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear and his scent surrounding me like a warm blanket, I’m starting to understand what she meant.
Which is ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous.
I don’t even know this man. I don’t know where he comes from or what he does for a living or why he was sitting alone in a bar. I don’t know his last name or his favorite food or whether he has family somewhere waiting for him to come home. I don’t know if he’s kind to strangers or cruel to enemies or somewhere complicated in between.
All I know is how he makes me feel. Alive. Seen. Wanted in a way I’ve never been wanted before.
That’s not enough to build a future on. It’s barely enough to justify a one-night stand with a stranger whose last name I never thought to ask.
But my wolf doesn’t seem to care about logic or reason or common sense. She’s curled up inside me, content in a way I’ve never felt before, and every time I think about leaving this bed, she whines in protest. She wants to stay here forever. She wants to burrow deeper in his arms and never come out.
I can’t do that. I have responsibilities. I have a life waiting for me back in Llewelyn territory, a job and a family and a future that doesn’t include mysterious strangers from Grayhide bars.
Sera will wake up in a few hours, and if she finds my bed empty, she’ll worry. Then she’ll come looking for me, and when she discovers I spent the night with a stranger I picked up in a bar, she’ll give me that look. The one that says she’s trying not to judge but can’t quite manage it. The one that makes me feel like a reckless child playing at being grown instead of an adult woman capable of making her own choices.
I love my sister more than anything in this world. She saved me, saved all of us, and I owe her a debt I can never fully repay. But sometimes her concern feels suffocating. SometimesI want to make mistakes without someone hovering nearby, waiting to catch me when I fall.
Tonight was supposed to be mine. This moment, this man, this feeling—it was supposed to belong to me and no one else. A secret I could keep tucked away in my heart like a precious stone.
But dawn is coming whether I want it to or not, and reality is waiting just outside that window. I know I’ll have to slip out of this bed before Patrick wakes up. I know I’ll have to leave without saying goodbye, without explaining, without finding out if this could have been something more than one perfect night.
“What’s on your mind?” Patrick mumbles from beside me.
Everything. Nothing. The fact that I want to stay here forever and the knowledge that I can’t. The question of whether this feeling in my chest is real or just a product of too much whiskey and not enough experience with actual emotions.
“Just wondering if I’ll ever see you again,” I reply instead. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s not a lie, either.
Patrick’s arm tightens around me, pulling me closer against his side. “Do you want to?”
“Yes.” The answer comes without thinking, as natural as breathing. “I really do.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I can feel something moving through him. When he speaks again, his voice is careful and guarded in a way it wasn’t before.
“My life is complicated, Caelan. There are things about me you don’t know. Things that might change how you feel if I told you.”
“Everyone has secrets.”
“Not like mine.”
I prop myself up on my elbow so I can look at him. His eyes are shadowed in the low lighting of the room, and there’s something in his face I can’t quite read.
“I don’t care about your secrets,” I tell him honestly. “Not tonight. Tonight, I just want this. Whatever this is, whatever it means, I just want to have it for a little while longer.”
He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, letting his fingers linger on my cheek.
“Okay,” he relents. “Tonight, we just have this.”
