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“Describe her.”

“I didn’t get close.” The runner looked at Conan, and then, because he tipped his head at me, she looked at me instead. “Small. Gray. Older than my mother. The four around the cart step back when she moves, and they don’t do that for the officer.” She wiped her wet forehead with a rag. “She’s in red. Full length, hood up.”

That meant she was of higher rank.

And I only knew of one woman of that rank who fit that description.

For eighteen years I’d seen that woman in a gray wool coat with a fur collar. She hadn’t put on the full-length red cloak since before I was born. It had hung in a glass case in her office.

The working cloak meant she was on the ground. On assignment. In the field.

My grandmother was wearing the red.

Which meant she’d come for me herself.

CONAN

Ruby didn’t sleep until nearly dawn.

I knew because I didn’t either. I lay behind her in the loft with my arm around her waist and listened to her heart. It never settled. Every time the fire below shifted or the wind worried at the shutters, it jumped. She’d go still against me.

Her grandmother was six miles away, sitting in a tent with a floor, wearing a red cloak she hadn’t touched since before Ruby was born. And she lay in my arms counting the distance.

I wanted to tell her everything.

The words sat in my throat all night. That wolves mate once. That there’s no second choosing, no moving on, no learning to live without the other half. That when my wolf found her scent on that path, he’d bound the rest of my life to hers, whether she ever chose me back or not. That if the Order took her tomorrow, something in me would tear loose and never mend.

I held her, and I breathed in the scent of her hair, and I thought all the things I wished I could say.

That every morning for the rest of my life, I wanted to wake up holding her in my arms just like this.

Near dawn, she reached for my hand and held it near her heart. Her breathing finally slowed. I stayed awake until muted light crept between the slats, keeping watch over my mate while she slept.

We didn’t talk much over breakfast.

She ate the food in front of her because she knew she’d need it. She braided her hair tight and pinned it, the way she must have done every morning of her working life. When she lifted the red cloak off the peg by the door, her hands paused on the wool for a moment before she swung it over her shoulders.

Wear the red, Imogene had said. If they see it at a distance, they’ll pause to check.

Today, one of the people looking would be her grandmother.

Ruby reached to fasten it. I put my hand over hers before she did.

“Conan?” She looked up at me, a question in her gray eyes.

“One day,” I said, “I want a quiet morning in a cabin with you. Just the two of us. No one coming.” My voice came out rougher than I meant it to. “I want to sit with you in the quiet. Then hold your hand while we walk outside beneath the sunlight, in the open, unafraid. A woman and a wolf, together.”

Her eyes went wide, but other than that she was still.

I waited.

The fire ticked behind us as the last log settled into ash. Outside, frost cracked on the eaves where the first sun touched it, and somewhere in the trees a jay scolded something I couldn’t see. Her scent rose around me, rain and woodsmoke and that warm sweetness underneath, the one I’d have known blind. Her heartbeat quickened beneath the red cloak. Under my palm her fingers stayed still.

My wolf held his breath. I held mine.

She looked down at our hands, mine covering hers. Then she turned her hand and laced our fingers together.

“I’d like that too.” Her voice was barely a whisper.