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Being chosen without condition.

Being seen and still wanted.

I lifted my face and met his eyes, and the way he looked at me stole whatever words I had left. Maybe the past had almost destroyed me. Maybe it had stripped away the softness I’d once held inside. Maybe it had even killed the girl I could have been.

But it had also led me here.

To this dance.

To this man.

To a love that didn’t ask me to bleed to earn it.

Sterling kissed my forehead again, and the lights shimmered above us like stars that had leaned in.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like I was surviving love.

I was living it.

And under that endless Montana sky, in his arms, I knew with absolute certainty that whatever darkness waited beyond this moment would never touch me the same way again.

Because I wasn’t alone anymore.

I was his.

EPILOGUE II

RYDER

The cruiser’s headlights cut twin tunnels through the black, carving just enough light to keep the road from swallowing me whole. Montana nights didn’t mess around this far out. There weren’t any streetlights or oncoming traffic, just me, the engine’s low growl, and the mountains and forest pressing in around me like they had secrets to keep.

I flexed my fingers on the wheel, rolling my neck once. The itch under my skin had graduated from restless to irritating. Sterling had finally locked down his girl, his obsession neatly wrapped in flannel and twin murderous tendencies, and Jett was off chasing whatever bounty or bad decision had caught his attention this week. Which left me doing laps around Blackwood at two a.m. because sleep was for people who didn’t know what waited in the dark.

Sheriff Ryder Boone.

Town golden boy.

The one moms smiled at and old men slapped on the back. The badge. The easy grin. The green eyes that made women forget their grocery lists and men forget their grudges. They liked the version of me that waved at parades and broke up bar fights with a joke.

They didn’t see the rest.

The part that liked the hunt a little too much.

The part that felt calmer once the screaming started.

And they definitely didn’t know about the teeth. But really, everyone needs a hobby.

The radio crackled with static, then went dead again. There hadn’t been any calls tonight. Not even a drunk wandering out of The Hollow looking for his truck. Which was strange, considering yesterday’s gas pulse. It hadn’t been big, not one of the old-school events that rattled your darkest impulses, but it had been enough to put a hum under my skin.

Enough that I’d briefly considered pulling Randy Phelps off the sidewalk for something to occupy my hands.

I exhaled slowly, letting the thought pass. Randy was a menace, sure, but he paid his taxes and only hit people who deserved it half the time. Besides, paperwork killed the mood.

A figure exploded out of the tree line, barefoot and wild-haired, moving like the devil himself was on their heels.

“Fuck—”

I slammed the brakes, my tires screeching as the cruiser skidded on loose gravel, fishtailing hard enough to make my teeth clack. The headlights pinned the shape in place for a second, just long enough for me to register the dirt-streaked face, the torn dress clinging to slender curves, and the frantic rise and fall of a chest that was definitely not a man’s.