He gathered her close, rolling onto his back and pulling her against his chest. The fire crackled beside them, the waves whispered against the shore, and Pip cooed sleepily from wherever he’d retreated to give them privacy.
She pressed her hand over his heart and felt it beating—strong and steady, matching the rhythm of her own.
“What happens now?” she asked softly.
“Now?” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Now we sleep. And then we go to find Ember and Rykan. To people who can help keep you safe, who can give you a chance to see more of the world.”
“Will they accept me? A stranger with a strange gift?”
“They’ll love you.” His arms tightened around her. “Almost as much as I do.”
She smiled against his skin, her eyes already growing heavy.
The ocean sang its endless song in the darkness. The fire burned low, casting dancing shadows on the sand. And for the first time in her life, she fell asleep exactly where she belonged—in the arms of her mate, beneath a sky full of stars she could finally reach.
EPILOGUE
Two months later…
The morning sunlightspilling across wilderness that reminded Baylin, in some ways, of the lands his pack had once roamed.
Two months. It seemed impossible that so much time had passed since they’d arrived in Port Cantor, exhausted and uncertain, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a small creature who’d decided humans made acceptable companions. Now the city felt almost familiar—still overwhelming for Liora at times, still noisy and crowded and chaotic, but no longer terrifying.
But it was the estate that had become home.
Ember’s country property sprawled across several hundred acres of carefully maintained wilderness, close enough to the city for easy access but far enough removed that the noise and press of humanity faded to a distant memory. The main house sat on a gentle rise, surrounded by gardens that Liora had immediately claimed as her own. Outbuildings dotted the grounds—storagefacilities, a guest cottage, the small converted structure that had become their private space.
He stood on the porch of that structure now, watching the sun climb higher as he sipped the bitter tea she had introduced him to. Vultor rarely drank such things, but he’d developed a taste for it over the past weeks, much as he’d developed a taste for so many things that had once been foreign.
She changes everything,he thought.Without even trying.
The restlessness that had plagued him for years—that constant, gnawing itch that had driven him from his pack and across half the continent—had finally quieted. Not vanished entirely; he suspected it never would. But here, with Liora, with purpose, with something worth protecting... the beast inside him found peace.
He finished his tea and set the cup aside, then stretched the tension from his shoulders before heading towards the main house. She would be in the laboratory by now, as she was every morning. The small building Ember had converted for her sat behind the main house, hidden from casual view by a carefully cultivated hedge maze. A fitting precaution, given what she studied there.
Her blood.
His jaw tightened at the thought. He’d watched her pore over her father’s notes for weeks, deciphering the careful documentation of experiments performed decades ago. The old man had known about her gift, had studied it in secret, had hidden her away to protect her from those who would exploit it.
And now she studied herself with the same scientific detachment.
It unsettled him, though he tried not to show it. The idea of her blood being drawn and tested, catalogued and analyzed—it felt too close to what slavers and criminals would do if they ever learned her secret. But this was her choice, her research, her way of understanding the abilities she’d been born with. He had no right to object.
You could never restrict her freedom,his beast reminded him.Not even to protect her.
No. He couldn’t. And he wouldn’t.
The hedge maze had been designed as much for beauty as security, its twisting paths lined with flowering bushes that released sweet fragrance into the morning air. He navigated it without thinking—he’d memorized the layout within days of their arrival, his hunter’s instincts automatically mapping every possible route of escape or attack.
The laboratory came into view as he rounded the final turn: a small stone building that had once served as a groundskeeper’s cottage, now fitted with equipment Ember had sourced through contacts who asked no questions. The windows were dark, obscured by heavy curtains that kept out both light and prying eyes.
He could smell her before he reached the door. That warm, indefinable scent that his beast had recognized as mate from the very first moment—honey and green growing things and something uniquely her own. Pip’s sharper musk overlaid it, along with the chemical tang of whatever substances she used in her work.
He pushed open the door without knocking. She’d told him long ago that he didn’t need to, that her space was his space, that nothing between them required permission.
“You’re early.” She didn’t look up from the microscope she was bent over, her blonde hair escaping its careful braid to fall around her face. Pip sat on the workbench beside her, gnawing contentedly on something that looked like dried fruit. “I thought you were hunting this morning.”
“I was. The deer were uncooperative.”
