Everything was a little morethere.
“I feel it too,” Rex said, and she realized they were walking hand in hand without having decided to. “All my senses seem sharper. Like the world is righter, somehow.”
“I feel invincible.” She paused. “Which I know I’m not. Maybe I’m feeling your strength?”
“Not sure. But you’ll get very few colds now. Heal faster.” He paused, then winced slightly. “Don't get hurt, though. The thought of you hurt is—”
“Wrong,” she said. “I can’t think of you being hurt in any way and not be terrified.” She lifted their joined hands and pressed her lips to his palm. “Let's just not get hurt. Ever.”
“Deal.”
They were nearly at the parking lot when something surfaced that had snagged her attention in the morning and then had been promptly buried under more pressing developments. “Howdid you know the pack was quiet? Do you hear them the way you hear me?”
“Not exactly. Owen, I hear clearly. The pack is more like... a sense. If something breaks the peace, like a threat or something serious, I feel a disruption in the flow.”
“But you can’t read any of them individually. Know their intentions.”
He knew where she was going. The smile that crossed his face was bittersweet. “No. But you can be certain there is very little I wouldn’t do to keep you safe.”
“I know,” she said.
Which worried her a little. He felt the shift in her mood. He stopped walking and turned her toward him, took her face in both hands, and kissed her. Slowly. Thoroughly. Until she had no thoughts at all, which was frankly unfair and also extremely effective. “Are you going to fix all my moods like that?”
“I'm certainly going to try.”
“Fair.”
They reached the parking lot and stopped before taking the last step that would take them off the track and into the gravel. The mildly absurd reality of logistics still needed answers.
She looked at him. He looked at her. The idea of getting in their cars and driving to separate places and spending any portion of the rest of the day not in the same room as him was so obviously not happening that it barely needed saying. “My place is closer.”
He simply nodded. “Then that’s where we’re going.”
They drove back separately because they were two adults, and it was the only sensible option. It turned out to be the more painful option, too, which was ridiculous. Or, it should have been. Ten minutes, one car length between them, his truck steady in her rearview the whole time, and it was still too much distance. For that, she took the most direct route.
They spent the day doing very little of consequence: coffee, her couch, a meandering conversation that jumped from werewolf pack dynamics to her grandfather’s recipe for salve made from calendula. Until they hit an unexpected topic.
“What’s your favorite movie?” she asked after the second cup of tea he’d loved—a blend of lemon balm, chamomile, and passionflower, softened with rose petals and a curl of licorice root. Her creation, it was one of her best sellers and her personal favorite. He’d liked it the first time and had lingered over the second, filling her with pride.
What We Do in the Shadows.
She stared at him. “The vampire one.”
“Yes.”
“You, a werewolf... your favorite movie is a vampire one.”
“It’s funny,” he said with a shrug.
“It’sextremelyfunny, I have seen it so many times, I just—” She pointed at him. “Do you have a Vladislav?”
His laugh was.... Good. Amazingly so. “You should know we don’t have the same relationship with vampires that the film suggests.”
“I do, but you never really know with you magiks.” She pulled her knees up. “Does Owen know this is your favorite movie?”
“Nope."
“So I know something about you that Owen doesn’t.”
