“It must have been nice having each other growing up,” she said.
Something in her voice made me set the joke aside.
“You had your sister.”
“For a while.” She glanced out at the passing city.“You’re raised with responsibilities to prepare you for the world, but once you step out everything changes.”
“One must change and adapt. But it’s easier with support.”
She could become part of our pack if she chose us, Kael said softly.
It’s our job to show her what could be. But her heat may—confuse matters.
Everything went quiet between us.
The city carried on regardless—lights still blazing, people milling around through the night in that distinct London way, unhurried and purposeful at once. Natives, tourists, everything in between. The endless melting pot of it. Hyde Park rose ahead of us by contrast, dark and serene, the gardens opening out beyond the gates, and the Serpentine would catch the moonlight if we were lucky.
“We used to sneak out when we were younger,” I said.“Shift and run through Buckingham and Kensington Palace gardens on a dare. The Irish and English history isn’t pretty—we’re rebels by nature.” I glanced at her.“I think you know something about rebellion yourself.”
She turned to smile.
Bright. Joyful. Completely unguarded.
“I guess I am,” she said, and patted my hand.
We both felt it. My wolf and I.
That hesitation before she took it away.
Chapter 38
Nika
Over three weeks ago I was rubbing an apple in my armpit for Carla.
Now I was stripping off behind a bush in Hyde Park at midnight to go for a run with my CEO.
Life had taken a turn.
Hurry up, Bad Girl said, pushing and probing with the impatience of someone who had been waiting for this her entire existence.
I need to take my trainers off, I warned her.Don’t you dare.
A rustle from the shrubbery beside ours. Close. Deliberate.
He’s already done, Bad Girl complained.I can smell his wolf.
I didn’t bother pointing out that he hadn’t spent the last three minutes wrestling with a sports bra in the dark, or that he’d been doing this for the better part of four decades. Some observations were better kept internal.
I’d barely pulled my second trainer free when she pushed forward—not a suggestion, not a nudge, a full sovereign takeover—and threw me sideways into the grass. The cold of it hit my palms for half a second before the world rearranged itself entirely.
Then we were up.
Her tail reaching for the moon. Her nose already reading the night.
I’d expected the shift to feel like losing something. It didn’t. It felt like being handed a set of senses I hadn’t known were missing—like switching from a blurred photograph to standing inside the original scene. Every old tree in the park had its own register. The grass and the soil and the cold night air carried separate, layered notes. Somewhere to the east, decaying wood and wet leaves. Further, the faint chemical trace of the path lighting. Water from the Serpentine threading through everything like a bass note beneath a melody.
And beneath all of it—him.
