“I want that too.” The words felt like freedom. “I want mornings in your kitchen and nights in your bed and arguments about whose turn it is to make coffee. I want all of it.”
“Even the surveillance?”
Despite everything—the pain, the fear, the war still coming—she laughed.
“Especially the surveillance. Someone has to keep me from running off to face monsters alone.”
“Damn right.” His arms tightened around her. “From now on, we face everything together. No more running.”
“No more running,” she agreed. She meant it. For the first time in years, she meant it completely. Because lying in this bed, wrapped in the arms of the man she loved, she understood something she’d been too afraid to accept before. Wyatt had made her want to be brave again. Had shown her what it felt like to be seen, wanted, loved without condition. Had given her something worth fighting for.
She wasn’t going to give that up. Not for Derren. Not for fear. Not for anything.
Later—afterthe healers had checked her injuries and Junie had forced another purification potion down her throat—they gathered in Avine’s suite to plan.
Narla sat propped against pillows, Wyatt a solid presence at her side. His hand hadn’t left hers since the others had returned. Every few minutes, his thumb traced across her knuckles—a small, unconscious gesture that made her chest ache with tenderness.
“We had a plan,” Theo said from the doorway, his wolf’s authority quiet in the space. “Strike first, before he could. That’s changed now—his invitation is a trap.”
“So we don’t walk into it.” Wyatt’s voice was steady, tactical. “We still set our own terms. Choose our ground.”
“The harbor is still right,” Cassia agreed, storm energy crackling. “Open space, room for the dragons. But we need to give him a reason to go there.”
“How?”
All eyes turned to Narla.
She thought about Derren in the parking lot. The way he’d looked at her—not with hatred, but with curiosity. Interest.
“My candles.” Her voice was hoarse but certain. “He’s been interested in them since the surge changed my magic. If I can make him believe I’ve developed a new awareness—something that threatens him?—”
“He’ll come to investigate.” Wyatt finished. His jaw tightened. “Using you as bait.”
“Using my magic as bait. There’s a difference.” She squeezed his hand. “I won’t be alone this time. I promise.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. She watched him wrestle with it—the protective instinct warring with the respect for her autonomy. Finally, he nodded.
“Together.”
“Together.”
On Avine’s phone, Dahlia’s face appeared. “We’re catching the next flight,” she said. “We’ll be there by morning.”
Junie was already pulling out vials, her chaos magic humming in agreement. Aero and Delos arrived quietly and took up position near the door. The pieces were all in place—what was new was the shape of the trap.
Narla looked around at them. Then she looked at Wyatt, solid and certain at her side.
This—community, love, belonging—was what strength looked like. Not the ability to survive alone, but the willingness to trust. To let people in. To believe that maybe, just maybe, she deserved to be fought for.
THIRTY-EIGHT
WYATT
She was alive. That was what mattered.
Wyatt had spent seventeen years in law enforcement—had faced down rogue shifters, territorial disputes, the occasional supernatural crisis that threatened to tear Haven Shores apart.
He knew what preparation felt like. The sharp focus. The tactical checklist running in the back of his mind. The cold clarity that came from accepting that he might die. Three days of healing, of Junie’s potions and Dahlia’s pastries, and Wyatt refusing to leave her side. This felt like standing on the edge of something vast. Not an ending, but a beginning. Like everything in his life—every year of isolation, every wall he’d built, every night he’d spent alone in his cabin convincing himself that solitude was strength—had been leading to this moment.
