Knox carried this ring for all this time, for me. Through the escape down the mountain. Through building the club from nothing. Through meeting Sarah, claiming her and marryingher. He kept it and never put it on his wife's finger because it wasn't his to give. Because the tradition said first, and Knox, the firstborn who spent his whole life going first, held it for me.
"You found her, Finn. Take it."
I lift the ring from the box. The metal warms against my skin, heavy and smooth, and it hits me in a place I didn't know could still bruise. My mother's hand wearing this band while she stirred a pot over the fire. My grandmother's hand, dark-knuckled and strong, pressing it flat against her chest during the clan songs. Generations of women who loved hard and held tight in a world that tried to grind them down.
A ring small enough to fit Jess's finger. My heritage in a circle.
"She might need more time. Humans do things different."
"Brother, you bit her. The ring's a formality." Knox cuts me off, and a smile crosses his lips. "Ask me how I know."
I choke on a laugh that comes out rough. "Your wife?"
"Yeah, my beautiful, stubborn wife."
I close my hand around the ring and hold on.
The apartment holds the dark like a warm hand when I get back that night.
Jess lies across the bed in one of my t-shirts, her legs tangled in the sheets, her hair loose against the pillow. The claiming markpeeks above the collar, silvering at the edges. Through the bond I feel her. Present, warm, a current running low and steady.
The ring sits in my jacket pocket. Twelve feet away, hanging on the hook by the door. I can feel its weight from here.
"I want kids." She says it to the ceiling, arms folded behind her head, voice casual in the way that means she's terrified. "Two at least. Maybe more."
Through the bond, I feel her nerves. The fear of wanting too much, of saying it out loud and having someone tell her she's being unreasonable, or too old at thirty-two, or too intense, or too much. The old wound from the ex who looked at her open heart and called it a problem.
I prop myself on one elbow and look at her. "Hello to you too, Kitten. Then we won't wait. Not long."
Her head turns. "Finn, it's been two weeks."
"We've been in love for eight months. We were stupid about it."
She opens her mouth. Closes it. The bond flares with surprise and then a deeper warmth, a loosening in her chest that fills the space between us with heat. A woman realizing she can ask for the life she wants and not get laughed at.
"Last guy told me I was broken. That the nightmares and the flinching and the way I can't sit with my back to a door made me too hard to love." She doesn't name him. She doesn't have to. The bond tightens around an old bruise, and I feel her brace, the muscle memory of a woman who handed someone her worst scars and got told they were ugly.
"He was a pussy." I pull her toward me until her back fits against my chest. Press my mouth to the claiming mark and feel the bond carry the words deeper than my voice can reach."You're the bravest person I know and you're perfect the way you are, Kitten."
She's quiet for a long time. Her fingers lace through mine, and the bond hums with a feeling she doesn't name but I recognize—relief. The specific relief of a woman who braced for impact and got held instead.
"We'll have all the kids," I tell her. "When, not if."
"Are you proposing?"
"Not yet." I tighten my arm around her. "You'll know when I am."
She laughs. The surprised, wet sound of someone who built an entire life around lowered expectations and keeps getting more than she planned for. I hold her through it. Let the bond carry what I can't say with my mouth pressed against her hair—the future I'm building around her one morning at a time.
She falls asleep against my chest. Her rhythm evens out, deep and slow, her fingers still threaded through mine. The bond settles between us like a banked fire, warm and steady.
I lie in the dark and listen to her breathe and feel the ring pulling at me from across the room. A circle of carved metal holding four generations of Stone women who loved fiercely.
Chapter 11
Jess - 2 weeks later
Finn's been lying to me through the bond all day.
