Page 39 of Into Ember

Vick’s head tilts.

He breathes in. Slow. On purpose.

I know exactly what he’s doing, because I did it too. He’s double-checking his own senses.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Nobody answers him.

“Why the hell does she smell like—”

He stops.

I watch all of the anger drain out of his face and his jaw fall with it.

“No.” He says it to the room. To himself. “That’s… not possible.”

“It’s possible,” Rayner says from the window. Almost cheerful. He’s proud and I can’t say I blame him. I feel it too.

“How can that be?”

“We don’t know.” Leif steps forward — one measured step, putting himself in it. “That’s what we need to figure out. But she doesn’t—”

Vick looks at me. At her back. At me.

I see it click into place. He’s finally realized she’s growling at him. But it’s the why that kills me when he finally figures it out.

Vick’s whole face changes.

Everything the anger was covering comes up, and what shows up on his face is a look I’ve never seen before. His eyes come off her and land on me, and he grins.

Vick. Grins.

“You have a fucking mate.” Wider now. Centuries of pressed collars and measured words, grinning at me across a kitchen. “I am so fucking proud of you.”

Her shoulders come down a fraction. The growl thins under it because I know her mind is spinning and I use the only second I’m going to get.

I shake my head at him. Small. No. Not like this.

I’ve been waiting years to tell her. I’ve dreamed about it, hell I’ve mapped it out more times than I can count in my head. She deserved to find out the right way, like it was something to celebrate. Something to cherish, to…

“No?” Vick’s brows come together. Subtlety has never once survived contact with this man. “What are you talking about, Erik? You’re back, and you’ve brought yourself a mate with you.”

The word lands in the room a second time, and this time it lands on her.

“Erik,” Elara says.

“…Uh-huh.”

“What the fuck is the crazy man talking about?”

I catch the anger rising up Vick’s neck again because there’s no one in this realm or any other that would ever call him crazy to his face except—

“Ella—”

“Don’t call me that.”

Still mad, then. Noted.