Page 31

“Learn.”

The laugh that comes out of him is sudden and bright and completely, devastatingly real. It fills the bedroom like something that’s been locked in a box for years, and my chest cracks open at the sound of it. I turn my head. His eyes are closed, his mouth still curved, and there are tears on his lashes that he’s not bothering to hide.

“That’s the first time,” I whisper. “In years.”

He doesn’t open his eyes. His hand finds mine on the sheet and threads our fingers together.

“French braids,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing circles against my knuckle. “Ponytails. Butterfly clips.” His voice is already going thick, the syllables blurring at the edges. “I’ll learn. I’ll learn all of it.”

His breathing slows. Deepens. The hand in mine goes slack by degrees, first the fingers, then the wrist, then the whole arm going heavy across my ribs like a bridge being lowered. His chest rises once more. Falls. Rises. Falls. The rhythm settles into something ancient and unhurried, and I lie there and listen to it, my own heartbeat slowing to match his, the way it always does, the way it always has.

I turn my head on the pillow.

His face is slack. Completely slack, the jaw unclenched, the brow smooth, the lines around his mouth that have been carved there by four years of exile softened into something almost boyish. A lock of dark hair has fallen across his forehead, and I reach up with my free hand and brush it back, my fingertips barely grazing his skin. He doesn’t stir. Not even a flicker beneath the lids.

Four years. I count his breaths the way I used to count the stars through the cracked window of the tent, methodically, without expectation, because the counting itself was the point. One. Two. Three. The rise and fall of his chest beneath my palm is steady, unhurried, the breathing of a man whose body has finally, finally stopped waiting for the next disaster.

I watch him sleep.

The amber light from the fixture catches the dried blood along his ribs, dark, flaking, already healing beneath the crust.

I place my hand over my stomach. The skin is warm beneath my palm, unremarkable, the same skin it’s been for six weeks. But I can feel the pup now, not physically, not yet, but the way you feel a candle flame in a dark room. Present. Flickering. Alive.

This time.

The words settle into my chest like stones dropped into still water. I press my palm flat, fingers splayed, and make the promise the way you make promises to the moon, silently, with everything you have, because the moon doesn’t negotiate.

This time we saved you, little one. I’ll save my mate. I’ll save all my pups. No matter what it costs.

Darian’s breath catches. A small hitch, barely there, the kind of sound a body makes when the mind behind it is dreaming something sharp. His wolf stirs beneath his skin. I can feel it through the bond, a low, restless vibration, the animal equivalent of a man pacing a small room.

Mate, his wolf sends. Not to me. To him. A murmur from inside his own skull. Mate is making promises again.

I go still. My hand doesn’t move from my stomach.

She made promises last time too, his wolf continues, and the voice is older than Darian’s, rougher, carrying the particular weight of something that has lived through death and come back with the memory still wet. She promised the same thing. And she kept it. She kept it and it...

The memory hits me before I can brace.

Not Darian’s.

Mine.

The field. The grass pale under a moon too large for the sky. The woman standing at the center of the light, her face slipping in and out of focus, her eyes steady and old.

One life saved is one life lost, Arlene. The equation balances. Always. That is the price of the door.

The words burn behind my sternum like a brand that’s been pressing against my own ribs for weeks. I close my eyes. We’ll worry about that another time. For now, we sleep safely. For now, my pups are safe, my mate is safe. We are safe.

10

Arlene’s POV

The knock comes at seven fifteen, which is either perfectly polite or perfectly calculated, and I haven’t decided which.

“Daddy did my hair!” Darlene shrieks it before I’ve finished turning the doorknob, and she launches herself past my hip like a small, dark haired missile, both hands clutching the sides of her head like she’s afraid it might fall off. “LOOK!”

Luna Selena is standing on the porch with Alpha Rylan half a step behind her, a basket in one hand. The smile that breaks across her face is immediate and genuine and completely, devastatingly unguarded.