Wyatt looked around the table. At these men—alphas, betas, dragons, a mayor—who’d become what he’d never expected to have. A brotherhood, built on shared experience and mutual dysfunction.
His panther settled, just slightly. The beast recognized pack when it saw it, even if Wyatt’s human brain was slower to accept.
He raised his beer.
“To trying again.”
The glasses clinked. Wyatt drank, finally, letting the cold beer wash down his throat.
It wasn’t a solution.
Two hours later,Wyatt stepped out of the brewery into the cool night air.
The conversation had shifted to surge logistics—Aero’s research, Hux’s political damage control, Theo’s pack patrols reporting increased magical activity near the coast. Normal crisis management. The kind of problem Wyatt knew how to solve.
But underneath it all, his awareness of Narla pulsed steady as a heartbeat.
She was still at her cottage. Hadn’t moved in hours. He could feel her presence across the miles—not precise, not detailed, but undeniable.
A fixed point in the dark. His awareness of her as constant and involuntary as breath.
His panther stirred, restless.
“Not tonight.” He muttered it to the empty parking lot, earning a strange look from a passing couple. “She needs space.”
His phone buzzed. A text from Leo:
Stop arguing with your panther in the parking lot. People are staring.
Wyatt shoved the phone back in his pocket without responding. But as he walked to his car, words lodged in his brain.
If she’s in danger, she needs someone in her corner. Someone who can fight for her even when she won’t let him.
He didn’t know how to be that person. Had spent decades making sure he’d never have to try. But his panther was done waiting, and somewhere across town, his mate was sitting alone with secrets that were eating her alive.
Maybe it was time to stop investigating from a distance.
Maybe it was time to actually show up.
He had to see her. Not to demand answers or interrogate her secrets. Just to… be there. See what happened.
It wasn’t much of a plan.
But it was a start.
THIRTEEN
NARLA
One week since the festival, and Narla’s shop had become ground zero for romantic chaos.
Spellbound Lights sat on Moonstone Lane, its Victorian bay windows catching the late afternoon sun, its warm amber facade glowing in the October light. The hand-lettered sign above the door had drawn customers for years—quiet magic, subtle enchantments, the kind of candles that made people feel safe without understanding why.
Now it drew crowds.
Narla stood behind her counter, phone pressed to her ear, watching through the front windows as another cluster of people gathered on the sidewalk. Some peered through the glass with desperate hope. Others kept their distance, faces tight with fear. All of them had heard about her candles.
“—completely unacceptable.” The voice on the other end of the line belonged to Margaret Holt, Hux’s mother and Haven Shores’s most formidable society matron. “My daughter-in-law lit one of your candles at a dinner party last night. In front of guests. Do you have any idea what happened?”
