Page 22
… like a hand held close without touching.
“Stop thinkin’ things like that,” I snarl at myself. “That is insane.”
Insane, yes. Good word; human word. A word for men who find twig bundles on their porches, dream about being chased through the forest, then meet the seven-foot nightmare who apparently railed them in said dream. The biggest issue shouldn’t be how good its voice felt in my head.
The cabin appears faster than I expect, or maybe I’m running harder than I realize. Moonlight spills over the small clearing where the ranger cabin sits with its porch dark and the two bundles waiting on the steps.
Seeing them almost makes me stumble. They’re so small from here—just carefully tied plants and a little white stone. Not weapons, threats, or teeth.
Gifts.
I run harder, and gravel skids under my boots as I hit the clearing. My hand fumbles for my keys even though the door is unlocked. Apparently, my body wants to supply a little slapstick to the mental breakdown I’m currently experiencing. I shove the door open, shut it, and lock it behind me, then stand there breathing so hard my ribs hurt.
For one full minute, I do nothing. I don’t move away from the door; I just stand there in the dark entryway, listening to the quiet outside.
Too quiet, I almost think, then nearly slap myself. I am not doing that. I am not going to stand here and assign evil intent to normal forest silence. I know better. I’ve spent most of my life in these woods and know silence has texture and reason. Animals pause when something large passes.
Something large is out there, and I remember the creature too clearly.
The lantern hanging from its antler, the fused skull—weathered, real, and moving when it breathed. The pale glow of its eyes locked on mine. Its sheer size, and the careful distance it kept even as I backed away.
Especially then.
It could have crossed that space in a blink; I know that for fucking certain. If that creature wanted me on the ground, I would have hit the dirt before my body even comprehended his touch.
But he let me run.
… and he called me mate.
9
Onyx
Little Ember runs.
Mate, I told him. Mate, the old law was written in the marrow long before his people named this forest.
His feet answered with distance.
For one breath after he turns from me, I remain exactly where he left me, with his wordless shock still pressing through the new bond.
The forest opens for him because it knows him now. Branches that could catch at his clothing only brush him; roots he does not see sit low beneath the moss instead of rising beneath his boots. The earth does not trip my mate as he flees from me, and that small mercy is the only reason I let distance stretch between us before I follow.
He is fast for a human. Not fast enough to escape me if I wanted to take him, but his body knows how to move through uneven land. Even running blind with shock, he chooses good ground more often than not. He ducks branches without looking at them fully, the memory of this forest guiding him through panic that is not panic.
That is what wounds me.
He is not truly afraid. I smell fear, yes—there and gone again beneath the pine, night, sweat, and ache of human disbelief. Fear should be bright. It should flood from him and fill the path, but it does not.
What pours from my mate is confusion so deep it almost becomes pain, denial beating through his pulse, thoughts moving too quickly for the bond to shape into anything I can understand.
And lust. I can smell desire underneath all the denial.
His body knows me in the old way, but his mind refuses what it has accepted. He runs because his perception has been split open and shown him a truth too large to comprehend.
Still, it cuts to watch him retreat from me, even though I knew he might run. I have watched humans long enough to understand that what stands outside their knowing becomes a threat before it can become wondrous.
I stepped into the light regardless. I allowed him to see the one Aestrata chose for him. I gave him the first word through the bond because no other word inside me mattered.
