But my wolf is quiet in a way that feels like certainty.
“What about now?” I ask, quieter. “Do you have family waiting at Ravenclaw?”
“No.” She pulls the tarp around her shoulders. “My parents died young. I trained at Frostbourne, my packlands. When Jason died, I threw myself into the work. I transferred toRavenclaw when our alpha mated with Brenna, and they needed healers. Healing was everything.”
“Was?”
She catches the tense. “Is.”
The fire settles into a steady burn. The cave is warm enough now that the cold is just a memory at the edges.
She’s closer than she was an hour ago. I don’t know when it happened. One of us shifted, or both of us did. We’re side by side, and the distance between our shoulders is maybe a hand’s width. Her scent has changed: woodsmoke, sweat, mountain air. Underneath it, still her.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“You just asked me several things.”
“One more.”
She turns her head. The motion brings her face inches from mine. “Go ahead.”
“In the cabin. When the helicopter came. You could’ve gone back.”
“I know.”
“It would’ve been safer.”
“I know that too.”
“So why didn’t you?”
She’s quiet for a long time. The fire crackles. Her eyes are on the flames, and the light in them makes the brown look almost gold.
“Because when you woke up in that cabin, you weren’t what everyone said you were.” Her voice is careful. “They said you were feral. Unrecoverable. A wolf who couldn’t come back. But I saw someone in there. Someone real.” She pauses. “I couldn’t hand that person back to people who’d strap him down and say it was for your own good.”
“Thank you…Sable.” Her name. In my mouth. Not rough, not halting. Clear. The way it should be said. Like it matters. Like the person it belongs to matters.
Because she does.
Her eyes come to mine. Something moves across her face.
“Say it again,” she says quietly.
“What?”
“My name. I like how you say it.”
“Sable.”
Her name leaves my mouth cleanly this time, and the sound of it changes her face. Her lips part. Her eyes soften, and for a moment she looks almost startled, as if I’ve touched her without lifting my hand.
“I see you,” I say. “I couldn’t say it before. But I see you.”
The distance between us has closed to nothing. I don’t remember doing it. My body turned toward hers the way it turns toward heat, and now her face is close, her eyes steady, the fire throwing her shadow long against the cave wall.
I want to kiss her.
The need is real and human and mine, so sharp it makes my hand unsteady when I lift it to her neck. Her pulse beats against my fingers, fast but even. She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t look down at my claws or my scars or the number on my arm.
