I curl closer, fitting myself against him like this is where I belong. And maybe—for now—it is.
The water in the pipes clicks as it cools. The steam in the room thins. The night stretches on ahead of us, with more certainty than I’ve ever felt.
I’m in love with Bigfoot, and somehow I’ll make sure I keep him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BOONE
The last fewdays on the road should have been perfect.
They were, in many ways. Elias laughed more easily now, the sound quick and bright, as if some long-held tension had finally slipped loose. He asked questions about how I can feel the land like a second skin—and I answered him without thinking, without the careful omissions I’d lived with for so long. We walked side by side, fingers lacing together as naturally as breathing. We kissed whenever we stopped, soft at first, then deeper, like we were reminding ourselves that the other was real.
At night, the world narrowed to heat and closeness and the quiet, astonishing truth of us. I learned the sounds he made when he was relaxed, when he was overwhelmed, when he was laughing at himself for how much he wanted me. He learned my silences, the way I went still when I was thinking too hard, the small tells I don’t bother hiding from him anymore.
And of course, there’s the fact that we said we love each other.
It happened quietly. The word slipping free, honest and terrifying and impossible to take back.
Mine, something in me had thought—soft and fierce all at once. That part of it hadn’t frightened me.
What frightened me was the way the land had begun to feel wrong.
It started as a pressure, faint enough that I told myself it was nothing more than the usual unrest that came with late spring—animals moving, territories shifting, old paths waking up. But the feeling hasn’t faded. It’s followed us. Always at the edges of my awareness, never close enough to confront, never far enough to dismiss.
It’s not tracking me.
That truth settled in my gut with sickening clarity on the third morning after we left the foothills behind.
Elias had wandered a few steps ahead of me, distracted by a cluster of wildflowers growing where the soil should have been too thin to support them. I’d felt the pressure then—sharp, intent—and for a heartbeat, my instincts had flared so hard I nearly called his name.
The sensation had vanished the moment he stepped back to my side. That was when I knew.
Whatever it was, it was watching him.
And I can’t lie to myself that I’m 99.9 percent sure that the unknown cryptid I confronted days ago is the being who refuses to go away.
I shortened our days after that. I told Elias it was about time—about logistics, about wanting to arrive at Yellowstone early to help Bob get ahead of the inevitable chaos. All of that was true enough to sound reasonable.
It wasn’t enough to fool him.
“You’re hovering,” he told me one afternoon, frustration edging his voice as we walked. “I can feel you doing it.”
“I’m being cautious,” I replied.
“You’re beingintense.”
I stopped walking, turning to face him fully. “I’m keeping you safe.”
“I didn’t ask to be guarded like a fragile artifact,” he shot back. “I’m not made of glass, Boone.”
I could have explained. Ishouldhave explained. But the words tangled up with fear and the certainty that naming the threat would only make it more real.
So instead, I reached for him. Kissed him until his annoyance softened, until his hands curled into my fur and his breath hitched. I murmured reassurances against his mouth, reminded him how much he mattered to me, how deeply and thoroughly he was wanted.
It’s worked. Mostly.
But I saw the way his eyes searched my face afterward, saw the question he didn’t ask.
