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Maybe it would if I were awake. Maybe the dream makes me braver, or maybe I’m tired of pretending my body doesn’t know him.

Onyx. He’s as beautiful and wild as the stone I gifted him. Beautiful, like the forest is beautiful when you know enough to respect that it could kill you. He reminds me of the only place that has ever made me feel fully at home… he is the forest personified.

His gaze lowers briefly to my mouth again.

I notice.

He notices me noticing.

Heat climbs my neck, and because I have zero survival instincts in this dream, I say, “Don’t get smug. I’m still processin’.”

Onyx’s eyes narrow with that almost amusement again. Processing, he echoes in my mind.

I laugh despite myself, soft and startled, and his entire expression changes at the sound. The hunger is still there, and so is the possession. But underneath all that is wonder so stark and quiet that it knocks the smile right out of me.

12

Onyx

He stays.

That is the first thing that matters. Not the name he put on me—though that settles warmly under my skin like a coal tucked into bark. Not the way his scent changed when he looked at this softer shape, his fear loosening into heat, confusion, and that curious pull that makes animals step closer instead of away.

Those matter, too; they matter much. But first is this: my little human, my little ember stands in the clearing and does not run from me.

I did not know how badly I needed that until the bond quieted with it. It had paced in me, sore and restless, nosing at the place where he turned from my first form and fled to his den.

I knew it was right to pull away from him. Pushing harder would have snapped him away from me for good.

Now, he stands before me in the moon-bright clearing with my new name on his tongue, and the ache eases so much that I almost sway with it.

Onyx.

I feel the name take root. He names me from something he chose to give back, and the bond receives it before I know how to hold myself still beneath the feeling.

I press my hand to my chest because the body I wear is too small for what is moving through me.

His scent has changed since the first night I saw him. Fear is there, yes, because he is not foolish, but it no longer comes first. Curiosity pushes against it. Caution. Guilt. Heat when his eyes travel over the body I wear and then snap back to my face as if he has been caught stealing from the forest.

He does this often—looks, then denies looking. Human contradictions remain difficult.

I feel him think men are not beautiful to him, then look at me as if I have become something beautiful anyway. He says he is still processing, though he does not chew, grind, or soften anything between his teeth. He speaks of disbelief while standing in the dream he entered after leaving me a stone and an apology. He fears being claimed, yet his body leans toward the bond every time it touches him.

My mate is confusing.

My mate is here.

That is enough to make happiness move through me so much it almost hurts.

And I cannot stop looking at him. Little Ember’s face moves quickly, much quicker than mine ever has, expressions changing and overlapping. Humans waste nothing with their faces. He wears all of his emotions in flashes that vanish before I have fully understood the first.

My kind never needed that much movement—scent and stance and silence did our talking. But my mate is made of quicker things, and I am trying.

“What are you?” he asks first, then his face takes on an expression of embarrassment. “I mean, what creature are you?”

Cervari. I send him the name Aestrata gave my kind. Made from forest, for forest.

His brows draw together. “So, you’re like… a forest guardian?”