"It's emotionally what happened."
I slide into the back with Emrys because the front seat feels too far away, and Kade gives me one amused look in the mirror before starting the car. The station falls behind us as we pull out onto the road, lights shrinking in the rear window. I feel the file in my coat pocket, the note Declan gave me sitting there like a cold coin. The hand and the glove. Cardinal still moving. More story waiting beyond the dark.
Emrys leans into my side and rests his head on my shoulder.
The file gets quieter.
"We need a bigger place," Kade says after a few minutes.
Emrys lifts his head. "For the donuts?"
"For the three of us. For the nest. For the fact that Skylar's slowly colonized half my closet and still claims he doesn't live there."
"I have three shirts there."
"You have a drawer."
Emrys laughs against my shoulder, and I feel the sound everywhere it touches. "A bigger place would be nice."
Kade glances at me in the mirror. "Would it?"
A month ago, the question would've felt like a trap. A door closing. A future with locks on it. Tonight, it feels like a hand held out and waiting for me to decide whether I'm ready to take it.
"Maybe," I say. "Though maybe we should talk about bonds before real estate."
The car goes very quiet. Emrys sits up so fast his shoulder bumps mine. "Are we doing that?"
Kade's eyes meet mine in the mirror, then shift briefly to the road. His voice is careful when he asks, "Are we becoming an official pack?"
I look at Emrys first, because he's already staring at me like I've handed him something breakable and bright. Then I look at Kade, whose hands are steady on the wheel even though his scent has deepened enough to fill the car.
"Would you want that?" Kade asks.
The honest answer rises before the fear can bury it. "Yes." I let the word sit there, simple and clean, and then keep going because they deserve the whole thing. "If you'd asked me several weeks ago, I would've said no. Not because I didn't want you. Because it would've felt like a trap. A claim I couldn't leave without hurting someone, and I've been very good at leaving before anyone got the chance to ask me to stay."
Emrys's fingers tighten around mine.
I breathe through the old instinct and make myself finish. "But I don't want to leave. And knowing you want me, having that reminder in a way I can't talk myself out of when I get scared… that's more than I thought I'd ever get to ask for."
Epilogue Two
Kade
It's been nearly three months since the warehouse. Skylar still brings work home dealing with the offset of the Cardinal Network, but the nights feel different now. Lighter. We eat dinner together more often than not, and the conversation doesn't always circle back to evidence or leads.
Tonight's one of those nights.
Skylar sits across from me at the small table, his phone in one hand and a fork in the other. He's been on another case forthe last two weeks, something smaller but still demanding. His attention keeps drifting to the screen. Emrys notices. He's been trying to pull Skylar back into the room for the last ten minutes, leaning across the table to steal bites from Skylar's plate and making quiet comments about the day at the bakery.
"You're doing that thing again," Emrys says, nudging Skylar's foot under the table. "The one where you disappear into your phone and forget there are actual people sitting across from you."
Skylar looks up, guilty but smiling. "Sorry. Just checking one more thing. Reyes sent over some new footage and I wanted to see if it matched what we already have."
Emrys steals another piece of chicken from Skylar's plate with his fingers. "You can check it after dinner. I spent two hours on this and I want you to at least pretend to taste it."
"I'm tasting it," Skylar says, but he sets his phone down anyway and reaches for Emrys's hand. "It's good. Really good. You added something different this time."
"Cardamom," Emrys says, pleased. "I was feeling fancy."
