“Jesus, sweetheart,” I say.
I’m on my feet before I know I moved. I haul her up into my arms and spin her once, twice, her laugh breaking loose withthe tears, her hands clutching my shoulders while that beautiful, impossible word keeps falling from her lips.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I don’t remember the last time I felt this alive. And all I can think is that the whole damn mountain heard her choose me.
She is still trembling when I set her down. From the force of what just happened.
Her eyes stay bright and stunned, fixed on my face as if she’s waiting for the word to vanish and leave us right where we were. Instead, she touches her throat again, then looks at me with wonder.
“Yes,” she says once more, softer now.
That one nearly puts me on the floor.
I laugh full out, wrecked enough that I have to drag a hand over my mouth for a second before I trust it to work. “Yeah,” I say, voice gone rough. “I heard you, sweetheart.”
Her mouth trembles into a smile. Small. Shy. Real.
I kiss her forehead first because anything else feels too big too fast. Then I pull her against my chest and hold her there while my own heart tries to settle into something a man can survive.
“We need to tell Mama Rue,” I say after a minute.
Briar nods hard. “Yes.”
The word comes easier that time. Still scraped raw. Still precious enough that it settles in my bones.
I guide her over to the shelf by the stove where the CB sits. The old thing crackles when I switch it on. Static fills the cabin for a moment, then steadies into the familiar low hiss of clan life carried through wires and weather.
Briar stays tucked against my side, one hand on my ribs, the other brushing her throat. She can’t stop checking that the sound really came from her.
I key the mic. “Mama Rue. You there?”
A burst of static answers first. Then her voice rolls through, dry and calm. “I’m here. What’s so urgent you can’t wait till supper?”
I look down at Briar.
She watches me with wide eyes, waiting for me to put this new thing into the world where others can hear it too.
I smile before I can stop it. “She chose me.”
Silence.
Then Rue laughs once, soft and satisfied. “Well. I was beginning to think the both of you would die stubborn.”
Briar makes a strangled little laugh against my shoulder, and I swear I will spend the rest of my life earning that sound.
I key the mic again. “I’m asking for the binding tonight. If you’ll do it.”
Rue doesn’t answer right away. I can picture her on the other end, cane propped beside her chair, eyes narrowed in that way she gets when she already knows the answer and wants the weight of it felt anyway.
“Does the girl still want it now that she’s got her voice enough to choose out loud?”
I lower the mic and look at Briar.
