I have no good answer for that. None that I'm willing to share, anyway.
He leans forward slightly, his golden eyes intent on mine. "We both know why, Astrid."
"Enlighten me," I say. Why did I let him go? Because I was scared? No. I wasn’t scared.
"Because you recognize what I am. Just as I recognize what you are." His gaze is steady, unflinching.
The world stops. My carefully constructed reality cracks down the middle. Someone knows.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say automatically, the lie bitter on my tongue.
"Don't you?" He tilts his head, studying me.
Heat floods my face as the memory resurfaces… my delirious confession in the sinkhole after he saved me. "I'm not supposed to heal this fast. No human does. But I'm not... I'm not entirely human." Words spoken in a moment of weakness, when I thought I was about to die at the jaws of a massive wolf. Of course he knows. I told him my most dangerous secret, and instead of killing me, he carried me to safety.
I maintain my aim, but something shifts inside me. I could shoot him. Should shoot him, according to every protocol I've ever followed. He's a confirmed Class 3 entity in my home. But then what? There'd be a body to explain, reports to file, questions about why a wolf shifter targeted me specifically.
And deep down, I know why he's here. The same reason I let him go. Twice.
Slowly, I lower my weapon to my side, though I don't holster it yet. "If I wanted you dead, you would be," I say, more to reassure myself than him. "Why are you really here? What do you want?"
"Your trust," he says simply. "To start."
Trust? Is he serious? I was expecting threats, blackmail, some leverage to keep his secret safe. That's how the world works. That's how my world works. GUIDE taught me that trust is a luxury I can't afford, especially with someone who knows what I am.
One word from him to the wrong person and I'm strapped to an execution pyre. He’s a predator asking the prey to trust him not to bite.
I laugh, the sound hollow. "I don't even know you."
"You know enough," he says, and there's something in his tone, a certainty, a connection that resonates in my chest like a struck bell. The strange electrical sensation that's been humming beneath my skin since Missouri intensifies as he speaks, as if responding to his words. Or to his proximity. Every cell in my body seems to vibrate with awareness of him. His scent, his heat, the subtle power that emanates from him like radiation from the sun.
Then the timer on the stove dings, shattering the moment.
Fenrir pulls back, rising to his feet in a fluid motion that makes the muscles in his abdomen flex. "Bread's done," he says, moving to the oven. "The brownies left the recipe. It should go well with the stew."
I watch him, this impossible man in my kitchen, and try to make sense of what's happening. Of what I'm feeling. Of the fact that I'm sitting here having dinner with a magickal being I should be hunting, and it feels more right than anything has in years.
"You still haven't told me how the brownies got into my apartment," I say, clinging to practical questions as an anchor against the tide of uncertainty.
He turns, a half-smile curving his lips and returns to the table with a loaf of fresh bread. "They simply... persuaded the lock to give them access."
"Persuaded the lock," I repeat, watching as he rips off small pieces of the loaf. His hands are large but move with surprising grace, each movement precise and controlled. "Is that supposed to make sense to me?"
He smiles again, placing a chunk of bread on a small plate beside my stew. "Brownies have old magick. Small, but potent. Locks, doors, windows—these things remember when they were trees and stones and minerals. They respond to the right kind of asking."
I take a bite of the bread, which is somehow even better than it smells—crusty on the outside, soft and pillowy inside. "So what you're saying is that my apartment security is useless against magical home invasion."
"Only the brownie kind." His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, something boyish emerging in his otherwise warrior-like features. "They like you, by the way. Said you were kind."
"Kind?" I nearly choke on my bread. "I was literally sent to capture and potentially exterminate one of them today."
"But you didn't." He leans forward, his voice dropping lower. "They see more than most give them credit for. They see what's beneath the surface."
Something in his tone makes my skin prickle with awareness. He's not just talking about the brownies anymore.
"I'm an agent of GUIDE," I say. "That's all they need to know about me."
"Is it?" Fenrir rises from his chair, picking up my now-empty bowl. "Would you like more?"
