Page 112 of Gunnar

“I know.”

Gunnar studies me. “We might not come back from this.”

I push back from the counter and square up to him.

“Then we don’t come back,” I say.

My voice doesn’t shake.

Not even a little.

Something has shifted in me, and I can feel it as I speak—clear, strong, locked in.

The last few days, everything that’s happened, everything that’s changed⁠—

I’m not the same person who walked into that lodge.

“I’m not staying behind,” I say.

Gunnar holds my gaze for a long second.

“Alright,” he says at last.

“Then you stay with me.”

He steps in close.

For a second, it looks like he’s going to say something else—but instead, his hand comes up, brushing gently over the mark at my neck.

A faint pulse answers the touch.

His eyes darken as he pulls me into him, arms wrapping around me, holding me there for a long beat.

Mine.

He doesn’t say it.

He doesn’t have to.

22

Alexandria

Gunnar and Torin march into the kitchen, each carrying an armload of metal, which they dump onto the table.

Guns.

I swallow.

I’ve seen what they can do in their bear forms. I’ve seen them take down armed men.

This is something else.

Don’t bring claws to a gunfight.

The thought comes and stays.

Torin starts sorting through them without comment, checking each one, setting them out in a line. Gunnar picks one up, turns it, presses something with his thumb, then sets it down again and reaches for another.