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I take the duffel out of her hand before she can argue about that too.

We walk across twelve feet of frozen grass. I measured it in April, standing in my own kitchen at two in the morning, telling myself I was checking the property line.

She stops at the edge of my porch.

"This is temporary," she says.

"Okay."

"I want that on the record."

"There's a record?"

"There's a record." She hitches the tote higher. "And I'm not sleeping on a couch that could double as a car."

"There's a guest room."

"With a door?"

"With a door."

Den, my wolf says. He’s not being subtle. He's been shouting one syllable since she picked up the duffel and he'll be shouting it at midnight. Den. Mate. Ours. Safe.

I have spent six months managing him with a wall and a window and a distance I could stand behind.

She's about to be on the other side of a hallway. In my shirt, probably, because she never packs enough. Barefoot in my kitchen at some indecent hour making tea that she likes to drink.

The Veiled Hand has thrown creatures, curses, and a burning door at me this week and none of it is going to kill me half as fast as this woman using my shower.

"You're doing the jaw thing," she says.

"I'm not doing a jaw thing."

"You're doing it right now. There's a whole muscle."

"Go inside, Maren."

She goes inside.

I take one last look at the street. At the burned door across the yard, hinge to lock, still smoking faintly in the cold. Under the char, that scent. A person. Someone who's sat on that couch and picked mushrooms off a pizza and laughed in that kitchen.

I don't say it. Not until I'm sure. I can’t tell Maren without proof and I won’t be able to take it back, ever.

Wrong, my wolf says, low. That one is wrong.

I know.

I shut my front door and throw the bolt.

Maren is standing three steps into my living room, not moving, her tote of candles still hanging off her shoulder.

"Gage."

"What?"

She points.

On the back of my couch, in the exact center of the cushions, in a patch of morning sun he has clearly been occupying for some time, Sid is asleep on his side with all four legs out.