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“I'm fine,” I say automatically.
“I know you are.” He says it simply. Not arguing, not pushing. Just acknowledging that fine and okay are not the same thing and he knows the difference. “She sounds like someone worth being angry on behalf of.”
The words hit the unguarded parts of myself.
I look at the fire for a long moment. My wolf is close to the surface in the way she gets when I need protection.
“I learned early that this world wasn’t going to make space for me,” I say finally. “So, I made my own.” I glance at him. “It’s worked. I’m good at it. But it’s—” I stop again.
“Lonely,” he says quietly.
I don’t answer.
Which is its own answer.
I’m aware of how much I’ve said tonight, how much more than I intended, how far I am from the carefully managed version of myself I brought to that first meeting outside Grey’s office.
I need distance.
“Tomorrow,” I say, keeping my voice even. “I think we should split up again but make it a full day. Watch the perimeter. Meet back at dusk.”
He looks at me steadily. “Why?”
“Efficiency. We’ll cover more ground—”
“Mia.”
“It makes tactical sense to—”
“Does it?” His voice is quiet. Calm. “Or does it feel safer because you’ve said more tonight than you meant to, and being alone is easier than sitting with what this feels like?”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
The fire pops between us. Echo, who has migrated back to his rock, opens one eye and closes it again.
“Do I make you that nervous?” he asks.
I can’t answer. Because the truth is yes, he does. Not because he’s dangerous but because he’s the opposite. And I don’t have a defense against that.
He looks at me for a moment longer. Then he stands.
“Mia,” he says again.
He reaches down and pulls me to my feet. I have no idea why, but I let him. Then I look at him—this infuriatingly patient, certain, quietly devastating man standing in the firelight in the middle of the woods—and I know what’s coming, and I don’t move.
“Prepotente,” I whisper.
He cups my face in both hands, tilting my chin up.
And then he kisses me.
Soft at first. A question. One I know I should cut off right here and now. But I’m tired of running, and when he deepens the kiss, I don’t pull back.
I sink into it.
Into him.
