One hand settles between my shoulder blades. The other wraps around my back, making sure I’m actually there.
And when he pulls me closer, just a little, it feels like he’s been waiting his entire life to be allowed to do this.
I press my face into his chest. He smells clean and warm and real, a person who exists in the world and fixes things instead of running from them.
“I was so scared,” I whisper. “I really thought they were coming after me, and that I’d never see this again.”
“I know,” he says.
My tears soak into his shirt. I don’t even try to stop them now. Zane’s chin rests lightly on the top of my head, his grip tightening just a fraction.
My breathing finally evens out. My body unclenches like it’s been holding a pose for hours.
Maybe there was never a threat at all.
Maybe the danger was just panic and exhaustion and grief stacking up.
Or maybe…
The real danger is how safe I feel right now.
And how badly I don’t want him to let go.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Finn
I tellmyself I’m just leaning against the kitchen counter because it’s there.
That I’m not watching.
That this is normal… people hug all the time. Especially after a scare. Especially when one of them is Zane, all quiet gravity and calm hands, and the other is Aurora, all cracked open relief and trembling breath.
Totally normal.
Still…
A sharpness hooks under my ribs when she steps into him.
It’s not jealousy. Not exactly. And it’s definitely not just lust, because this doesn’t feel hot, it feels cold. Sudden. Missing a step you didn’t know was there.
Zane freezes when she hugs him. Full statue mode, as if someone unplugged him mid-sentence.
I almost smile at that part.
Then his arms come up.
He pulls her in, just a little, and she melts into him because that’s where she was always headed.
And there it is.
That thing.
The thing that makes my chest go tight.
I swallow and look away, because staring is crossing a line, but the room’s too quiet, and my brain fills the silence with bad ideas.
She’s crying.
