He blamed himself. I’d deal with that later. Talk him down from the spiral, remind him that the blame belonged to one person who was going to die screaming.
For now, I focused on the road.
Anything except the way her scent filled the car, old books and honey and that maddening sweetness underneath that made my cock twitch against my zipper.
I shifted in my seat, grateful for the loose fit of my pants.
The rest of the drive passed in actual silence. Mira watched the trees grow denser outside the window, her reflection becoming more transparent as the morning light strengthened. By the time I turned onto the gravel drive that led to the cabin, sunlight was filtering through the canopy.
The cabin emerged from the tree line.
I’d spent a year building it. Lucian thought I was distracting myself from the boredom of the human world. Percy thought I was channeling excess energy into productivity.
Neither of them understood that I’d been following an instinct I couldn’t name, driving me to create a space that felt permanent. Important.
A home.I’d been building a home.
I hadn’t known why until the day we walked into her bookshop and her scent wrapped around me with the force of a fist to the chest.
Mate.That was why. I’d been building for her.
Mira leaned forward in her seat, her arms finally loosening from around her knees. “This is yours?”
The movement pulled the scrub top tight across her chest. I kept my eyes on the windshield through sheer force of will.
“Ours,” Percy said, twisting around again. “Yours too, if you want it.”
She didn’t respond to that. Just stared at the cabin, and for one unguarded moment, the wariness left her face. Then the walls came back up.
I pulled to a stop and cut the engine. Lucian’s car pulled in beside us a moment later.
“I’ll get your bags.” Percy winced. “Right. You don’t have bags. Sorry. I’ll just go inside and turn on lights. Make it lessmurder-cabin-in-the-woodsvibes.”
He was out of the car before she could respond, practically sprinting toward the front door.
Mira watched him go. “Is he always like that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a lot of energy.”
She glanced at me in the rearview mirror. Her mismatched eyes traced the scar running from my temple to my jaw, the one I’d earned from my duty.
Most people flinched when they noticed it. They look away, make assumptions about the kind of man who carried that kind of mark.
She didn’t.
Heat crawled up my spine and my breath came out slower than it should have. Controlled, deliberate, the way I breathed when I was trying not to let my body betray me. In the mirror, her eyes narrowed slightly.
My wolf pressed against my skin, wanting to be closer. Wanting to climb into the backseat and cage her against the door, press my nose near her neck and breathe her in until her scent lived in my lungs. I wanted to feel the flutter of her pulse beneath my lips, taste the salt of her skin, discover if she’d gasp or moan when I bit down on that soft spot where shoulder meets throat.
My hands curled into fists on my thighs.
“You don’t talk much,” she said.
“No.”
“Is that preference or personality?”
