Mercy reaches out, slow and open-palmed, and brushes one strand of my hair behind my ear. I lean into the touch—barely, instinctively—before I realize I’m doing it.
And for the first time in years, I don’t feel like a ghost.
I feel like Briar.
Chapter Four
Rafe
Mama Rue touches my elbow as Mercy works on Briar’s hair, and the gesture is so light I almost miss it. “Come outside with me,” she says. A summons from someone who listens to the mountain better than anyone alive.
I follow her out onto the porch. The air hits cold and sharp, cutting through the heat that clung to me inside. Mama Rue stands at the railing, hands folded, eyes fixed on the tree line like she’s reading a scripture written in branches.
“She can’t speak,” she begins quietly, “because someone punished her for trying.”
My jaw tightens. “I figured as much.”
It lands low in my gut, sharp enough to make my hands want to crush a certain man’s windpipe.
“That’s not all.” She turns to me, and the weight in her gaze lands heavy on my chest. “Her throat didn’t go silent by choice. It was forced quiet. Repeated. Hard. Violent.”
While my brain screams obscenities, the world narrows to her words, each one sinking deeper than the last.
“We don’t need to name the acts,” Mama Rue continues. “We only need to understand the harm. Her voice wasn’t stolen—it was damaged. And that damage kept happening, so it couldn’t heal on its own. I see the signs.”
My stomach drops. A hot, sick anger rises in my throat, thick enough to choke on. I grip the railing so hard the wood groans under my fingers.
“She’s just a slip of a woman,” I whisper. “A starving, hunted girl.”
“And yet she survived.” Mama Rue places a hand over mine, the warmth of her touch grounding me. “Her silence isn’t madness. It’s training. A shield. A wound that hasn’t had space to heal.”
I can’t hold the image of Briar curled in that corner and the reality of what caused it in the same breath. I want to put myfist through the nearest tree. I don’t. I stand there and take it instead. Then I want the man who did this kneeling in front of me so I can end the threat cleanly, swiftly, without a shred of mercy.
Mama Rue continues on. “When she reaches for you, when she comes close, when she obeys—none of that is choice. Not yet. It’s fear.”
I swallow hard. “I know.”
“Good,” she says. “Because the temptation to read her actions as wanting you will come. And you must not answer that temptation until she knows the difference between want and survival.”
The Code echoes in my bones:No taking from fear. No touch without choosing.
Mama Rue’s voice softens. “You’re lonely, Rafe. The mountain knows it. But don’t confuse closeness with consent. And don’t take her trembling for invitation. This situation is different than the ones that have come before it.”
I look down at my hands, stained with dirt and the faint smear of blood where she bit me. “I would never touch her for my sake.”
“I know that.” She pauses. “But you will want her. And wanting isn’t wrong. Acting on a wound is.”
I exhale shakily. The breeze stings my eyes. I rub a hand over my face, trying to release some of the heaviness choking my chest.
“She deserves gentleness,” I say quietly. “Real gentleness. Not the kind she thinks she owes.”
“She deserves choice,” Mama Rue corrects softly. “And you are the kind of man who can give it to her. In the end, let her choose you. Then she’ll feel safe enough to stay.”
My throat aches, but I nod through it.
When I finally step inside, the sight waiting for me knocks the breath from my lungs.
Briar, hair half-braided, face washed, wounds salved, skin clean and glowing by firelight, looks nothing like the terrified creature I carried in.
