I turn, expecting Dina to be frozen, to be in shock, but she’s already got her hands on Alora’s head, shielding her eyes, whispering calm into her ear. The baby’s face is blotchy-red and wet, but her cry is strong and, most importantly, alive. Dina looks up at me, and for the first time since all this started, she doesn’t look at me like I’m the enemy. She looks relieved, and the relief is so raw it nearly knocks the breath from my lungs.
Nick and the others crash into the clearing a second later, the fight already heavily in our favor. James and Bryan are in full shift, tearing into the last of the porch guards, and the air is thick with the smell of blood and adrenaline. Luna stands by the tree line, eyes on me, face pale but resolved. She nods once, and I know she’s got our backs. More screams ring out in the distance, then go silent.
I pull Dina and Alora behind the cabin, out of sight of the carnage, but with Dylan watching our backs. My hands are shaking, but I reach for them anyway, and Dina lets herself fall into my arms like she’s been waiting her whole life. I hold her, and I hold Alora, and the three of us just breathe for a second, the world shrinking to this patch of dirt and sunlight and blood. Alora whimpers, then burrows her face into my chest, and I kiss the top of her head, over and over, not caring who sees that my heart is cracked wide open.
Dina sags against me, boneless, and I realize she’s done. She’s spent every last ounce of fight, and all that’s left is the shaking. She tries to stand, to explain, “I broke the wards, I thought if I could disrupt the circuit, maybe you’d see us, maybe…” but I hush her with a hand on her cheek.
“You did it,” I say, and my voice is thick with pride. “You saved her. You saved both of you.”
She laughs, with tears falling, and we simply stand there, lost for words. I try to summon one of my flippant jokes, anything to soften the weight of the moment, but nothing comes, and so I sink into the moment too, my eyes wet with all the enormity of all things I’m struggling to say.
Chapter 18 - Dina
It’s after midnight by the time we make it home; Alora has long since calmed after the ordeal, sleeping through the transfer from truck to arms to crib as if nothing in the world could trouble her. I stand over her in the dark nursery, shushing my own racing pulse, trying to convince my nervous system that the danger is over. Outside, the last of the patrols are still sweeping the woods for any Cheslem stragglers, but inside, it’s so quiet that I concentrate on the hush of Alora’s breaths and the tick of her nightlight as it switches from cool moon to gold.
Caleb stands behind me, solid and unmoving, watching both of us with what looks a lot like exhaustion. My hands hover over the crib rail, not sure if I’m supposed to adjust the blanket or if I’ll just wake her up. My fingers stayed remarkably steady throughout the kidnapping and escape, but now they shake as if the real threat is in the aftermath.
“She’s safe,” he says, after a long time. It sounds more like hope than fact; I’m not sure either of us believes it just yet.
I nod, because I can’t yet say anything that won’t come out as a sob. The air in the nursery is thick with relief, and a whole host of other emotions, including the memory of her small body pressed to mine as I ran, believing every step would be our last. I want to say I didn’t know I could love anyone this much, but I can’t even let the thought finish before it hits a wall. Instead, I say, too quietly, “I really thought I’d lose her. I thought I’d get her killed. Or…” My fails in the dark.
He doesn’t crowd me, just edges closer. “You saved her, Dina. Nobody but you. Even if we hadn’t shown up.”
I clench the crib rail, watching Alora’s hand make tiny sleep movements, fingers opening and closing on nothing. Iwant to believe it’s true, that I did right, that I did good, but the guilt is wound tight around my lungs. “She’s not even mine. I’m just the…” I almost say nanny, but the word turns to dust in my mouth.
“You’re notjustanything,” Caleb says quietly, “you’re everything.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I feel like every cell in my body is still vibrating with leftover terror, and the rawness in Caleb’s voice only makes it worse. I want to run from it. I half expect him to make a joke and deflect, but the jokes don’t come.
Instead, I just turn and face him, the darkness in the room making his silhouette soft, unguarded in a way I’ve never seen before. We stand like that, me braced against the crib, him a step away, neither moving for what feels like forever.
Then, as if we’ve hit the bottom of some emotional well and there’s nowhere else to go, he says, “You know, I never thought I’d get to have this. Not even for a day. Not a family, not… not love. Not after what I came from.” His words feel like a confession, and the words make my heart ache. His face is almost unreadable in the dim colors of the nightlight, but I hear the tremor in his voice. “I used to think if I could work hard enough, do enough, prove myself, I could make up for every fucked-up thing Cheslem ever did. I could make myself clean. But it doesn’t work like that, does it?”
The admission is so bare that I almost look away, but I make myself hold his gaze. “You’re not Cheslem,” I say, the words feel hard to say, but no less true. “You’re not your old pack. You’re not like them.”
He shakes his head, smile crooked, bitter. “I know. But it’s in me. I never wanted to be anything like them, but everytime I look at her…” he nods at Alora, “…I’m terrified I’ll break her the way they broke me.”
It’s too much. I want to reach for him, but I’m scared I’ll shatter, so instead I let my fingers rest on the edge of the crib, holding on to something real. “You won’t. She’s going to grow up loved.” My voice is certain, more certain than I feel, but I believe it. “She already is.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time, just breathes. I hear the exhaustion in it, the release, like he’s been holding that explanation in for years. We leave the nursery together as quietly as we can, the creak of the old floorboards loud in the hush. I pull the door shut behind me, and the soft click feels final, the final acknowledgment that she’s at least safe for tonight.
In the main room, I perch on the edge of the couch, hands knotted in my lap, while he moves around aimlessly, picking up a stray blanket, turning off a lamp, and checking the security system for the third time since we got back. The tension between us is so thick I think I might drown in it.
Finally, he sits across from me, elbows braced on his knees. “I’m not asking you to forgive me, Dina.” He says it so softly it almost doesn’t carry across the room. “I don’t deserve it. But I want you to know that you two are the only things worth anything to me. You and her. You’re the only thing that makes me want to keep trying to be good.”
The words are so earnest, so raw, that for a second I forget how to be cynical. I forgot how to armor up. I forget to hide the way my eyes sting with unshed tears or the way my hands want to tremble. I’ve spent so long bracing for the moment when he’d let the mask slip and show me something ugly, selfish, and pure Cheslem, but all I see is a man desperate for redemption,terrified he’ll never get it, baring the softest part of himself with no guarantee I won’t throw it back in his face.
I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. My wolf is howling inside me, furious and protective and so fucking sad for him, for me, for everything we lost and never got to grieve. I realize, in that moment, that I’ve never really allowed myself to grieve; not for my father, not for the life I was supposed to have, not for anything. I just packed it down tight and let it turn into anger, then pointed it at Caleb because it was easier than letting myself feel the pain.
He must see the waver in my face, the way I’m coming apart, because he leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tight his knuckles go white. “I know I can’t ever make up for what Cheslem did to you. I know that. I don’t expect you to forget, or to even want this. But I want it. I want you. I want us to be a family, if you’ll let us.”
My heart makes a sound like a gunshot.
I can’t look at him, not straight on, so I stare at the space just above his shoulder and try to remember how to breathe. “You really want this? Even thinking that I’ll never be able to give you a clean slate? That I’ll always be the woman who lost everything because of your old pack?”
He laughs, but there’s nothing cruel in it. “That’s the only you I want. The one that survived. I don’t want clean slates. I just want you.”
For a second, we say nothing, and the silence is so pure and so deep I feel like I could fall into it and never hit bottom.
