The image was so startling I nearly gasped, but it felt comfortable, too. Inevitable. The thought warmed me.
“Do you think they’re really with us?” she asked. “Watching over us or something like that? Or is it just wishful thinking?”
“I don’t know, Gray.” I sighed, pressing my lips to the top of her head. “That sounds like a question for Spooky.”
Gray laughed, but it trailed off quickly, and she pulled out of my embrace to look into my eyes once more. The amulet around her neck still gave off a subtle white light.
“We have to send Reva in tomorrow night to see if there are survivors,” she said. “For all we know, Trinity is still planning the full-on attack. I don’t want to wait another day.”
I nodded, totally in agreement. “She’s ready for it, Gray. Liam’s been working hard with her.”
“Oh, she’s totally ready. I just…” She sighed, looking out again over the white sea. “I guess I just wanted her to have a shot at normal. The shot the rest of us never got.”
“She will, Gray. You’ve given her that.”
“Letting her be our eyes and ears on this… We have no idea what she’ll see once she gets in. But I do know that whatever it is, Emilio, she’ll never be able to un-see.”
Gray was right, and there was nothing I could say to ease her mind.
“When this is over,” she continued, “I was hoping she might want to live with us. I mean, if you’re all cool with that. I just thought…” She trailed off, finally turning to meet my gaze again. Her eyes were full of love. Hope, however fragile in this moment, the relative calm before the storm.
“Gray, there’s no question,querida. Reva is family.Everyonehere is family, and we take care of each other.”
This got a smile—a real one—and she drew me close again. “Yeah, but just so we’re clear?Noteveryone here gets an open invitation to our house.”
“Our house,” I echoed. “I like the sound of that.”
“Do you think it will happen?”
The wind kicked up again, bringing with it a wet, icy blast of slush, coating us both. But neither of us flinched, and I held her gaze, my heart pounding fiercely, the words fighting their way out against the onslaught of weather.
“I love you so much it scares me,” I said.
“I’d tell you not to be afraid, but I feel the same way.” She shivered in my arms, then laughed. “In a good way.”
“In thebestway.” I dipped my head to kiss her, sighing against her lips. “I know you usually sleep during the daylight hours, but I was wondering if you might do your favorite wolf shifter a favor tonight?”
“What are you asking me, wolf?”
“Come to bed with me. Just the two of us tonight.”
Wearing matching conspiratorial smiles, we snuck back into the lodge and found a small, windowless bedroom currently being used to store dried herbs and a few other bulk supplies. It wasn’t pretty, but it was warm and quiet, tucked away from the main bedrooms, unlikely to be disturbed or even noticed.
As surreptitiously as I could, I retrieved a couple of extra blankets from the other bedroom closets, then returned to roll out a makeshift mattress for us.
We stripped out of our wet clothes, and there in the quiet darkness of our secret room, I made love to her, soft and slow, savoring each tender touch and kiss, each smile and sigh.
We spent the next few hours talking about our dreams, about the future, about what our someday house would look like. She told me about the herb garden she wanted to plant, and I told her about all the different recipes I wanted to try, and on and on we chatted, until one by one, the others found their way into our little hovel.
Asher first, who could always sense whenever someone in the vicinity was getting intimate. He curled up on the other side of Gray, nuzzling the back of her neck.
The three of us had just gotten comfortable when Darius appeared, staking out a patch of blanket behind me.
Liam and Ronan came in last, neither saying a word. Like the others, they simply found their place among us. Their place in our family.
There, in that tiny windowless room on our last night before our military operation began in earnest.
It felt right. It felt familiar. It felt real. And I allowed myself to hope, for the briefest moment, that it would be. That when all of this was done, we’d find that house Gray and I had painted in our minds, and the six of us—seven, if Reva accepted Gray’s invitation—would make it our own.
