Her breath hitched.
They looked at each other, the noise of the bar blurring into a dull roar.
After a heartbeat, she nodded once. “Fine,” she said. “No running. Not this time.”
Something in his chest eased that he hadn’t known was locked.
“Then come home with me tonight,” he said.
The wordhomehung between them, fragile and dangerous.
Dani eyed him, then huffed a humorless little laugh. “You are really bad at this.”
“At what?” he asked.
“At courting,” she said. “At apologies. At…everything. But.”
She glanced over at Aurelia again, at the way the girl’s shoulders had dropped, at how she looked almost relaxed here, surrounded by wolves who were pretending not to stare.
“Fine,” Dani said. “We’ll stay at your house. For now. Don’t make me regret it.”
He bit back the ridiculous urge to grin. “I’ll have Chase bring your things over,” he said. “We’ll leave when you and Aurelia are ready.”
“We’ll finish our hot chocolate first,” she said. “I’m not wasting Layla’s hospitality.”
He snorted. “Wouldn’t dare.”
For the first time that night, she smiled at him. Properly.
His wolf rolled over in sheer, ridiculous joy.
Arthur straightened. “I’ll be at the bar,” he said. “If anything—”
“I know where to find you,” she said.
He hesitated, then, as he passed the jukebox, bent and brushed a brief, careful kiss to Aurelia’s curls.
She stiffened in surprise, then relaxed. When he glanced back, she was watching him with a look he couldn’t quite read.
He didn’t need to. Not yet.
His mate and his daughter were here, in his town, edging closer to his roof. He intended to keep it that way.
One step at a time. One evening. One concession.
It wasn’t much.
But it was a start.
Chapter 9 - Dani
Dani woke up to the smell of coffee and bacon.
For a few disorienting seconds, she didn’t know where she was. Timbered ceiling, not plaster. A mattress that dipped where someone heavier had slept for years.
Not the compound.
Arthur’s house.
