“I owe you that,” he says, low. “I’m sorry. For making passes at your lioness. It wasn’t right, and I knew it then.”
“It’s behind us,” I tell him, flat and easy, arms crossed. The calm is a lie. What I want, standing here, is to put him in the dirt, cold and simple, no anger behind it at all. I don’t let the want finish. I keep it half-formed and let Tobias walk away whole, because that’s the thing about my magic now.
There’s no casting to it anymore, none of the words or blood it used to take. I want a thing and the wanting is enough. That’s the danger in it too. One stray want, half-meant, and it’s done before I can take it back. So I’ve gotten careful about what I let myself want all the way through.
“I’ve still got a lot of shit going on,” I say, and I leave it there.
Torin’s gaze cuts past me, out to the cottage at the Glen’s edge, and his brows lift. “Looks like you Blackwoods got the Glen handled, though.”
“It’s not as simple as you think,” I tell him, and I hear how tired it comes out.
“Ohhh.” He’s never been one to push me for more than I’ll give.
I change the subject. “How are things with Nala and the pup-cubs?”
His whole face opens up the moment somebody hands him his family. “Great. They’re great,” he says, and then his voice drops, quieter now, aimed at me. “But we miss you, man. Nala misses you too.”
“I miss her too.” It surprises me how much, hearing myself say it out where he can hear it. I look at Torin. “I miss all of you.”
He turns and finds Mara through the window, and she catches him at it, her whole face going soft. She lifts a hand and waves. Torin dips his head to her first, respectful, before he waves back, and his attention stays on her a moment before it comes to me.
“I ran into Ocran and Seth up at the Academy,” he says, careful now, watching how I take it. “Here and there, you know how it is. They mentioned you haven’t been by House of Zorah.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” It comes out sharp.
He goes quiet and doesn’t rush to fill it, which is worse than if he’d argued. “Well,” he says finally, easy, letting me off the hook, “we’re just here for bread for the village.”
Then he lifts his hand and sets it on my shoulder, and that’s the part I’m not braced for, the plain steady weight of it, a man who’s known me since we were stupid kids crowded around one table. I don’t deserve to be comforted, and I want it so badly my eyes start to sting.
“Whatever’s going on with you, Aaron,” he says, “you’ve got a friend here. Always.”
I clear my throat and pull my shoulders back and make myself solid again. Across from us Tobias’s face softens, and then he steps back and turns his eyes down the lane, giving me the room. Of course he can smell it on me, the wet edge of it, how close I’m standing to coming apart right here on the market steps. He knows better than to watch a man do that. Torin nods him toward the bakery, and Tobias goes without another word. He hangs back, though.
He looks at me for a long moment, and whatever he decides, it comes out sad. “I wish you the best life there is with your fated mate,” he tells me. “You deserve it more than anybody I know.”
“Thanks, man,” I manage.
“You meanbrother.” He says it and holds my gaze until I nod.
I look at him and smile, too full up to say anything back. He claps my shoulder once more and turns and follows Tobias into the bakery, and the door swings shut behind the both of them.
The dressmaker’s door opens a moment later, and Mara comes down the steps with a wrapped bundle in her arms and her ears already swiveling toward me. I take it out of her hands before she can argue and pull her in against my chest with the other arm. She fits there soft and warm, the way only she ever has. Home.
She glances toward the bakery, her tail curling a question. “Should I go say hi to Torin?”
“No,” I say into the top of her head. “I want to get you home. I miss having you to myself.”
She sinks into me at that and tips her head, baring the side of her neck, and I drag my mouth slow across the claim mark there just to feel her shiver run through both of us. She giggles, low, her tail winding around my leg, and I take her hand and pull her down the steps onto the path that runs out to the road.
We pass the spa, and Mara’s steps slow beside me. “Do you think we’ll ever get to have our vow renewal?” she asks, light, like it’s a small thing, and not fooling either one of us.
I stop and bring her hand to my mouth and press a long kiss to the back of it, because I don’t have an answer that won’t break one of us. That’s what guts me every time. Not the Glen or Eric or the crown I keep pretending I don’t see coming—this. Her, wanting one small bright ordinary thing, and me not sure I’m the man who gets to give it to her.
She softens, leaning into me, her tail winding slow around my wrist. I can’t help the smile. I know exactly what she’s doing, reading me, pulling my mood right out of the air. I hate thatthere’s anything for her to catch at all, that worrying over me has become half of what she does.
She keeps looking up at me the whole walk, those amber eyes cutting sideways every few steps, and after a while it’s all I can feel. “Mara, let me just open a portal,” I tell her, voice rough. “Get us home easy.”
She pokes her lip out at me, that pout that gets me every damn time, and leans harder into my arm. “Okay. I’ll stop.” Then, softer: “You know how much I love walking with you.”
