Not real lies. He can't do that, not with his heartbeat running a parallel track beneath mine. But he's been burying something under so many layers of forced calm that the effort itself gives him away. Every time I look at him, a pulse of anticipation leaks through before he smothers it, followed by a spike of nerves he covers with a grin.
I catch it for the fourth time over dinner at Knox and Sarah's, where Sarahshifts in her chair for the fifth time in ten minutes, one hand braced against the underside of her belly. She's enormous now, the kind of pregnant where standing up requires strategy and sitting down requires Knox's arm. He cuts her chicken without being asked, slides her water glass closer when she reaches for it, adjusts the cushion behind her lower back.
"Stop hovering," Sarah tells him.
"I'm not hovering." He refills her water. "I'm helping."
She catches my eye across the table and mouthshelp me.I grin into my fork.
After dinner, while Knox and Finn clear plates, Sarah grabs my wrist and pulls me onto the couch beside her. Her belly presses against my arm and I feel the baby kick through the fabric of her shirt, a sharp jab that makes us both flinch.
"He's been doing that all day." She rubs the spot with her palm. "I think he's trying to escape."
"He's got your impatience."
She laughs, then goes quiet. Her fingers find mine on the cushion between us.
"You're happy." Not a question. She studies my face with the directness that made me trust her the first week I knew her. "Like, really happy. Not just Finn-happy. Nightfall Cove-happy."
"Yeah." The word comes out softer than I intend. "I am."
"Good." She squeezes my hand. "Because I need someone sane to help me raise this kid, and Knox's idea of parenting advice is 'he'll be fine, he's an orc.'"
From the kitchen, Knox's voice, "Orc children are resilient."
"He has ears like a bat," Sarah mutters, and I laugh hard enough that the baby kicks again.
"What are you up to?" I ask Finn on the ride home, his Harley vibrating beneath us, the salt air off the harbor cool against my arms.
"Nothing." His voice carries over the engine, easy and smooth.
"Liar." I press my cheek against his back and feel anticipation, nerves, joy, all of it swirling too fast for him to stop. "I can feel you scheming."
His laugh rolls through his ribs and into mine. "Using the bond is cheating."
"The bond is doing its job. You're the one broadcasting at full volume."
He squeezes my knee where it grips his hip and doesn't answer. The motorcycle carves up the hill toward the compound, past streets still marked with the hurricane's signature. A fresh-cut stump where the old oak on Harbor Road stood for sixty years. A section of boardwalk rebuilt with lumber so new it gleams yellow under the streetlights. Two weeks since the storm blew through and Nightfall Cove knits itself back together the way small towns do: stubborn and loud and one neighborhood barbecue at a time.
My life filled in around the edges while the town put itself back together. Fourteen residents stitched up, two broken bones set, one concussion referred to the mainland hospital. Finn's kitchen, our kitchen, now holds groceries that constitute meals instead of the protein bars and black coffee he survived on before me. Four dinners with Sarah and Knox, two shifts at the clinic with Dr. Bryce back and grumbling about the state of the roof, and one very long phone call with my mother in Virginia where she cried about how far away I live and then asked if Finn's tusks make it hard to kiss him.
I belong here. The realization stopped surprising me around day four.
The apartment door sticks. Finn shoulders it open ahead of me, which should register as odd because he usually holds it for me from behind, one hand on the small of my back. But the bond jangles with so much nervous energy that I'm focused on that instead of the door.
I step inside, and the air smells like candles. A dozen of them line the kitchen counter, the bookshelf, the windowsill, their flames casting the apartment in a warm, unsteady glow that turns the bare walls soft. Wildflowers, not roses, because Finn pays attention when I talk, crammed into a mason jar on the counter. The kind that grow wild along the bluffs south of town. Purple clover, Queen Anne's lace, stalks of goldenrod that lean crooked against each other. I mentioned them once, months ago, told Sarah they reminded me of the fields behind my grandmother's house in Roanoke.
"Who lit these?" Because we've been at Knox and Sarah's for two hours.
He grins. "Colt owed me a favor."
"You trusted Colt with open flames in our apartment?"
"He sent me a photo fifteen minutes ago. Everything still standing." He pulls his phone from his pocket and flashes the screen—a blurry shot of candles on the counter, Colt's thumb covering half the lens. "Mostly."
He taps the screen, and music replaces the photo. Low, acoustic, the Hozier track I hummed in the shower last week without thinking about it, the one I didn't realize he heard. He props the phone against the coffee maker and pockets his hands.
"What's all this?"
