I hadn’t realized I was staring at him until he blinked up at me.
“What?” he murmured.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just wondering how I got this lucky.”
He flushed and burrowed in closer, his fingers idly tracing circles on my chest through my shirt. My bear huffed softly inside me, deeply content.
But under all that comfort, something darker stirred.
The competition, our crazy little crew, all of it made me proud. I’d never imagined something like this when I walked away from my old life.
I thought I’d end up alone in the woods, maybe opening a sad roadside stand selling burnt muffins to truckers.
Now? We were prepping for a festival baking showdown, and the guy in my arms had kissed me like I was something worth holding onto.
And yet, in the middle of all this warmth, Orin lurked in the back of my mind like a cold draft under the door.
The way Sean had said his name. The fear behind it. I hated it.
The old me, the one who’d clawed his way out of Ironwood Falls, the one who didn’t blink twice before throwing a punch, he would’ve hunted Orin down already.
Tracked him like prey, cornered him in some alley, and made damn sure he understood what it meant to threaten someone I cared about.
Back then, I wouldn’t have waited. Wouldn’t have paced the floor or stared at the ceiling wondering what the right thing was. I was the justice.
I was teeth and fury and retribution wrapped in flesh.
And if Orin had so much as looked in Sean’s direction with bad intentions, I would’ve put him on the ground and made sure he never looked at anyone like that again.
Violence had been the only language I knew. It was what I was raised on. Scar for scar, blow for blow. You didn’t talk things out in my old clan.
You didn’t call for help. You handled it. With claws. With blood. With teeth buried in someone’s shoulder until they learned their place.
And the worst part?
There was something... addictive about it.
That dark heat in your chest, the rush when your fist connected, the satisfaction of knowing you could protect what was yours because no one would dare cross you again.
It was simple. Brutal. And it worked.
You didn’t have to worry about rules or whether someone deserved forgiveness. You justacted. You won. You survived.
And sometimes, God help me, I missed it.
Not the clan. Not the cruelty or the way it ate at your soul day after day. But the certainty. The clarity.
Back then, you didn’t second-guess yourself. You didn’t lie awake hoping the police would handle it, or that the threat would just vanish. You took care of it.
Even Rafael wouldn’t have fully understood that, not the way Levi did.
My brother and I were raised knowing that, one day, we’d inherit our father’s empire of blood.
Some mornings, when the scars itched terribly, I thought of Levi and wondered how he was doing. Did he come to resent me for leaving?
But now... I had Sean. I had Bear and Bun. I had Rafael, Leo, Cass, and Dorian. I had Sunday mornings full of laughter and burnt toast.
I had peace. Hard-earned, precious peace. And that part of me, the one who used to revel in being feared, it was caged now. Rusty, chained, and half-starved, but not gone.
