But the strangest part isn’t that I belong to someone forever.
It’s that, somehow, it feels like coming home.
Even thinking it feels surreal. The words echo in my head like someone else said them. Like I'm remembering it from a movie I saw half-asleep once, not something I actually did with my own body—and whatever is now dwelling inside it.
But then I shift slightly against the seat, and the fabric of my hoodie scrapes against the bite on the back of my neck. A faint, warm pulse hums under my skin.
His mark.
And just like that, I know it’s real. All of it.
Beside me, Bolton glances over just once, and when our eyes meet for half a heartbeat longer than normal, I see it.
Pride. Wonder. Some gentle form of awe.
But also something deeper.
Recognition.
Not just that I shifted.
But who I am now that I have.
He looks away before I can process it, back to the winding trail ahead. The truck rattles again, tires catching in the soft rut of old earth.
I let my hand drift to the side, resting against the seat between us. I don’t realize I’ve done it until I feel his fingers brush mine—slow and unhurried.
His thumb grazes my knuckle, and I feel it like a pulse in the center of my chest.
I close my eyes, lean my head back against the cold window, and let the silence carry us home.
Bolton pulls the truck to a stop at the end of my street, headlights dimmed.
“You sure you don’t want me to walk you up?” he says, finally breaking the silence.
I shake my head. “She’s probably waiting in the kitchen with cocoa and a lecture.”
He smiles faintly, “She saw you,” he says. “She knows.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “She does.”
I grip the door handle, but I don’t open it yet. The truck’s cabin is warm and dark and… safe.
I glance over at him.
“I still don’t know what this means,” I admit. “For me. For you. For this… fated-mate thing.”
Bolton leans back, his voice steady but quiet. “It doesn’t mean we’re trapped. Or forced. It just means the bond is there. You get to choose what you do with it.”
I nod, but my mouth quirks. “Kind of hard to ignore a bond that lights up like a neon sign under the moon.”
“We’re wolves,” he says. “We don’t do subtle.”
I grin despite myself.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.
His hand tightens slightly around mine, just enough for me to feel the warmth of his skin, the steady beat of his pulse. He doesn’t answer right away.
