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“You’re welcome.”

Rafe stopped on the trail ahead of them.

“Hop on,” he said, stooping low enough for Ruby to get on his back.

“Hop on?” she said with a surprised laugh.

“I love you, but this is going to take forever,” he grumbled. “Hop on.”

Ruby shrugged and climbed up onto his back. She yelped when he stood to his full height, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“I could get used to this,” she said with a grin.

“Any time.”

And Fee laughed, knowing Rafe was dead serious about that offer.

She scurried to catch up to Theo as Rafe trudged along behind.

“Those two are intense, huh?” she said, coming up beside Theo. The trail was wider here and she could just about fit next to him.

“Intense is an understatement.”

“You okay?”

Theo glanced down at her, a furrow between his brows. “Uh, yeah. Fine.” Even his cocky grin was half-assed. “Thanks for the pep talk in the truck.” He winked at her and what she wouldn’t give in that moment to go back to their flirty normal. Even after the last fight, even after he left his pack and broke her heart, they were so good at pretending everything was fine between them. They’d been pretending for a year now that they were still just flirty friends. But the facade was cracking. She couldn’t pretend anymore.

Nothing felt normal anymore.

“Happy to help,” she said.

He took her hand and tangled his fingers with hers. Some of her nerves smoothed over with the action, like just touching him calmed something in her.

She needed him.

For so long, she’d needed no one, or pretended she needed no one, wanted to need no one, and now this … this werewolf was so intertwined with her soul that she couldn’t cut him out, even if she wanted to. Fee scowled at no one in particular, maybe just the fates or her own damn heart. Couldn’t she just have lived out her days reclining in the leafy bowers like her brethren? Like a normal nymph? The fates had to tie her to this fucking, closed off, emotionally stunted werewolf?

Said werewolf gave her hand a squeeze and she wanted to tear out her own fluttering heart. The werewolf had clearly won.

He’d won a long time ago.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

One Year Ago

“Hey, Fee!”

Phoebe peeked out her window and spotted Theo down below. It had been weeks since she’d seen him. She uncloaked her house and heard Theo clambering up the ladder. She met him at the door.

“Theo!” she gasped, taking him in. He had a gash above his right eye and bruising on his face. He held an arm over his stomach like it hurt to move.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Oh, you know,” he said with a half-hearted laugh that immediately made him wince in pain.

“No, I don’t know! Come in, come in.” She ushered him inside and he lowered himself gingerly onto her couch. She perched next to him, afraid to touch him, afraid to hurt him.

“What happened, Theo?” she asked again, fear churning in her gut.