“Then let me help.” She pulled back far enough to look at him properly—his battered face, his bandaged wounds, the exhaustion carving deep lines around his eyes. “Stop trying to do this alone. You have allies. You have me. Use us.”
Cal studied her face. The stubborn set of her jaw. The steel beneath the softness that he’d caught glimpses of but never fully appreciated until now.
“I’ve spent years building walls. Keeping people out. Convincing myself I didn’t need anyone, that closeness was vulnerability in disguise.” His thumb traced her cheekbone, marveling at the softness of her skin. “But then you sat beside me while I slept, reading recipe journals like it was normal to have a six-hundred-pound bear in your storeroom. You cleaned my wounds without asking questions. You kissed me like I matter.”
“You do matter.” Her voice cracked on the words. “God, Cal, you matter so much, it scares me.”
“I know.” He pulled her close again, tucking her head under his chin, ignoring the fresh pain from his shoulder. “I know, because I feel the same way. And I don’t know what happensnext. I don’t know if I can be what you need, or if I’ll end up being one more person who hurts you?—”
“Don’t.” Her hand moved to his chest—not to push him away, but to press flat against it, feeling his heartbeat. “I know what you’re doing. I’ve watched myself do it for years.” Her eyes met his, clear and unflinching. “I’m not asking for promises. I’m not asking for certainty. I’m asking for you to stop building an exit before you’ve even walked through the door.”
Cal went still.
“The broken pieces,” she said quietly. “The stubborn parts. The bear who bleeds his way back to me when it matters. That’s what I want. All of it.”
A sound escaped him—half laugh, half a different sensation. “That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.”
“It’s the truth.” She kissed him again—quick, fierce, certain. “And I’m done pretending I don’t want this. Want you. Whatever comes next, we face it. Not alone. Never alone.”
They didn’t go further.
Not because Cal didn’t want to—his body made its interest abundantly clear, wounded or not—but because Dahlia was practical even in the midst of emotional upheaval. She pulled back with a shaky laugh and informed him that adrenaline and blood loss were not, in fact, a solid foundation for life-changing decisions.
She helped him to her bedroom—a small space filled with soft quilts and the scent of vanilla—and lowered him into her bed with the same practical efficiency she’d shown while cleaning his wounds. Cal wanted to protest, to insist on thecouch, but exhaustion was dragging him under, and Dahlia’s pillow smelled like her.
Her grandmother’s portrait watched from above the fireplace in the other room. Cal wondered what the old witch would think of a bear shifter bleeding in her granddaughter’s bed. Probably would have had opinions. Dahlia struck him as the type to come from a long line of women with opinions.
“Stay.” The word came out more strained than he intended. “Please. I don’t—” He stopped. Tried again. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Dahlia didn’t hesitate. She kicked off her shoes, climbed into the bed beside him, and curled against his uninjured side with the ease of someone who’d been doing it for years.
“Sleep.” She breathed the words against his shoulder. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Marzipan appeared from nowhere, leaping onto the foot of the bed and arranging herself in a loaf position that clearly communicated her intention to chaperone. Her keen gaze fixed on Cal with an expression that might have been approval or might have been a warning.
Hurt her, and I’ll destroy you, that look seemed to say.But for now, you’re acceptable.
Cal’s eyes drifted shut. Dahlia pressed against him, chasing away the chill of blood loss and shock. His bear fell silent, finally at peace.
A line had been crossed tonight. There was no going back—no pretending they were allies in a territorial dispute, no maintaining the careful distance he’d tried to preserve. They’d declared themselves, in words and actions and the simple, profound intimacy of sharing a bed.
Magnus would come for him. The fight was far from over. But for now, in this moment, with Dahlia’s heart beating steady against his side and her cat standing guard at his feet, Cal lethimself believe that maybe—he’d finally found what was worth fighting for.
He slept.
This time, there were no nightmares.
THIRTY-FIVE
DAHLIA
Two days after Cal bled on her couch, Dahlia still couldn’t stop thinking about his hands.
It was ridiculous. The man had shown up at her door wrapped in a tarp, covered in wounds that should have killed a lesser shifter, and what her treacherous brain kept circling back to was the way his fingers had felt threading through her hair. The calluses on his palms. The gentle strength when he’d cupped her face and kissed her like she was his anchor in a storm.
She was in trouble. Deep, irreversible, absolutely-no-going-back trouble.
The afternoon rush had finally slowed, leaving the bakery in that peaceful lull between the lunch crowd and the after-school cookie hunters. Dahlia wiped down the display case without thinking about it, her thoughts wandering to places they had no business going during business hours.
