I shake my head. “No, Mom never learned how to handle these. Dad tried, but like she said earlier, it just didn’t click with her. She’s never been good with anything mechanical. She preferred helping with the stuff after processing. Trimming pictures and framing. That kind of thing.” I touch the black-and-white image, our faces shrouded in darkness because of the negative. “Neal would’ve prepared the room and made sure these worked. He’s more hands on like that. Mom probably just cleaned things off and ordered the supplies.”
Even in the red light, I can see Tobias’s cheeks flush pink, no doubt remembering when Neal walked in on us. It reminds me.
“I guess I should warn you. The pack will know what happened.”
“Because of Neal?”
“No, because… well, they’ll smell it on us.”
Tobias’s eyes get huge as he steps away. “Are you kidding me?”
“It wears off the longer a couple is together, but yeah. The pheromones are intense in the beginning.”
Especially for fated mates.The musk that came off Red and Sage their first two weeks was enough to give me migraines.
“That’s so embarrassing.”
“It is what it is,” I say. “The shifter way.”
He focuses on the enlarger, trying every button, every knob. “I’m so excited to play with this.”
“Do you want me to go so you can get acquainted with everything?”
When he doesn’t reply, I laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Kissing his cheek, I step aside. “Have fun, Toby. See you in a bit.”
21
ROWEN
The weeks after Christmas pass by in a blur—quiet, calm days rolling into the next. But calm has never lasted long for us. There’s a heaviness to it now, like the air before a storm.
The old snow crunches beneath my paws as I move through the woods, Sage and Red on either side of me. The air is sharp this morning, heavy with the smell of frozen earth and damp bark. It’s almost dusk, the light turning that strange silver-blue that always makes the forest feel older, quieter.
Something in me won’t settle today. Every muscle in my body hums like it’s waiting for something to happen.
I can’t name it, but the forest feels off—too quiet or too still. Even in winter, I can usually hear something—branches settling, or the faint scurry of small animals. But today it’s dead quiet. The kind of quiet that feels like a held breath.
Maybe I’m just strung out. Things are getting to me.
Or maybe it’s that I haven’t really been with Tobias yet—not the way I need to be.
It’s late January, which means it’s been almost a full month since Tobias and I first kissed and fooled around in the darkroom. We’ve had a few othermoments in my bed, each one as good as the first, but no real claiming. No penetration, no bite.
And it’s killing me.
Not just the physical part. The not being fully bound. Not being fully his.
There’s a pull in my chest that hasn’t let up since that first night, like my ribs are caught on a hook, searching for the other end of our connection. When I’m with him—when he’s close—the world goes quiet in a good way. Like every wrong thing in my life finds its place. Like I was made to fit against him and nowhere else.
But that tug of our connection won’t lessen until we actually mate. And the longer we wait, the louder the need gets, especially with the dangers that hunt him.
I need to be with him. And soon.
A faint buzzing sound breaks the silence—too mechanical, too sharp to be a bird. I narrow my eyes toward the treetops, searching. The horizon glints with something metallic, which becomes larger the nearer it gets.
Out of nowhere, a black bird swoops past it, disappearing into the gray. The movement is too precise. Like it was watching the drone. Waiting for it.
