Page 10 of Into Ember

My mouth falls all the way open and I want to die, right here.

“You can’t… I didn’t… There’s NO WAY!”

The grin on his face is wide and all teeth and I want to slap it off him.

Because there is no way I said any of that out loud to a man I barely know. Just because he’s… Muffin.

Oh son of a bitch.

“I’m breaking that little habit right now.”

The chuckle reaches me before his face settles back into an easy smile.

“Don’t.”

I narrow my eyes. “Why?”

“You feel safe enough to complain.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. That’s — I don’t —

“I don’t know what that means,” I say finally.

“I know,” he says, and keeps walking, and doesn’t explain, because of course he doesn’t, he’s a cat, withholding is his whole personality in both bodies.

We walk. The thwack keeps time. And somewhere in there, quieter than I mean it to be, the real question gets out before I can stop it.

“Am I ever going home?”

He doesn’t answer right away. That’s how I know the answer matters — the easy ones come fast.

“We’re going to get you somewhere safe.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He sighs like he does not want to say the next part.

“I know. It’s all I can give you right now.”

I don’t think I like that answer, but it’s the one I’m getting, apparently.

Then the trees open, and there’s light.

A cabin. A real one — big, low, tucked into the hillside like it grew there, windows glowing gold, smoke standing up out of the chimney soft and slow. Warmth is coming off it in a way I can feel from here, or maybe that’s just what wanting looks like from the outside.

We make our way up to the front door and I stop walking. My feet vote unanimously in favor.

Leif stops beside me. When I look up, he’s already looking down at me, and there’s nothing cat about his face right now at all.

“I told you you’d be safe,” he says. “I meant it.”

And I believe him, which is its own problem, and my eyes are doing something hot and stupid that I blame entirely on exhaustion, and I’m about to say something stupid —

The door opens.

Erik is standing in it. Sleeves pushed up, warm light behind him, and past his shoulder there’s a fire going and something on the stove that reaches me from here and makes my whole body ache.

Erik…