“So he loved her,” I murmur. “How unexpected.”
“She was vile, but somebody found something loveable inside.”
We sit like that for a moment. My hand has come up to find his wrist, my fingers curled around the bone.
“You marked me.”
“You were dying, Miranda. Coach tried to stop me, but I had to take a chance.”
I lift my fingers to the small curve of indentations above my collarbone. He watches my hand move with his eyes wet. “It’s still raw.”
“It will be for another few days. Sera said the skin takes its time on a new bond, even after the rest of the body has healed.”
“And the rest of me?”
“Has healed completely.”
“All of it?”
“Everything. Close your eyes and feel inside.”
I let the inside of myself go quiet for a second, and then I feel it. The thing he’s talking about. There is a presence inside my chest that was not there before, not separate from me but next to me, curled small and warm under my chest, a sleeping thing breathing in time with my own breath. It stirs when I notice it, opening what feels like one eye to look at me.
My breath catches. “Grayson.”
“I know.”
“There is something in there.”
“That’s her. She’s yours. She was born from our bond when the mark went through, but she’s new, sweetheart. Newer than Ethan. She’s an infant. She’ll sleep most of the time for the first year, and she won’t know how to do anything until you teach her.”
“A her.”
“Yes.”
“I have a wolf inside me.”
“You do.”
I stare at him. The presence inside me stirs again at the sound of his voice, and a small, pleased sound that is not mine moves up the back of my throat. I clap a hand over my mouth.
Grayson grins.
My face is on fire. It’s reacting to his voice. The little presence in my chest is wagging something, a tail, a feeling, I can’t tell.
He kisses me before I’ve finished the sentence. Slow and warm and careful around the still raw mark on my neck, his thumb against my jaw, his other hand cradling the back of my head. My whole body reorients around the contact, the wolf inside me settling the moment his mouth touches mine, the small, drowsy presence going still and quiet.
When he pulls back, his eyes are wet again. “You’re real,” he murmurs. “I keep needing to check.”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Miranda.”
“I can’t promise more than that, Grayson.”
