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"Then we'll deal with that together, the same way we've dealt with everything else this fight has thrown at us." She takes my hand, steady despite the exhaustion clearly written across her own face. "You don't get to carry this alone either, remember? That promise goes both ways."

I want to argue, old instinct pushing me toward exactly the isolated guilt that's defined most of my adult life. But looking at her now, exhausted and blood-streaked from helping keep me alive through the worst of tonight's storm, I understand that whatever comes next, whatever consequences tonight's fight might bring, I'm not facing any of it the way I faced my parents' deaths.

Not alone. Not this time.

"Thank you," I say quietly. "For finding me. For not listening when I told you to stay safe."

"I'll never regret choosing you over staying safely out of the way." She presses a gentle kiss to my uninjured shoulder, careful of the wounds still healing beneath Rebecca's careful work. "Now rest. Whatever Cross's people saw tonight, whatever comes next, you can't face any of it if you don't let yourself heal first."

I let myself finally rest, her hand still warm in mine, grateful beyond words that tonight's storm, despite everything it cost, didn't cost me the one thing I'd genuinely believed I couldn't survive losing.

27

ZOEY

Istay beside Kellan through the rest of the night, watching him drift between uneasy sleep and half-conscious awareness while Rebecca checks his wounds every hour, murmuring reassurances about clean edges and no infection despite the storm's filthy conditions. The den's inner chamber where they've settled him carries the low murmur of pack members moving in and out, checking on him, checking on us, the whole community wrapped around this crisis with a unity I still find remarkable every time I witness it.

Somewhere around dawn, the storm finally breaks, wind dying down to something almost gentle, gray light filtering weak through whatever opening lets air into this part of the den. I sit beside Kellan's makeshift bed, his hand still loosely wrapped in mine.

A month ago, maybe even a week ago, I would have spent this quiet moment thinking about my old life, wondering what Ava's dealing with, whether the label's grown impatient with my silence, what story the tabloids have probably invented to explain my absence. Instead, sitting here in a hidden den carved into a mountainside, watching a wolf shifter breathe steadily in his sleep, I realize I haven't thought about any of that in days.

I don't miss it. Not the tours, not the attention, not even the music in the way I expected to. What I miss, when I let myself think honestly about it, is nothing from that old life at all. Everything I actually want is right here, in this den, on this mountain, beside this man who nearly died last night protecting people who've become as much my family as anyone I've ever known.

Kellan stirs a while later, eyes opening slow and unfocused before finding mine. "You're still here."

"Where else would I be?"

"Your own bed. Somewhere that isn't a cave floor." His voice carries a thread of humor despite the exhaustion clearly still weighing on him. "You should rest properly. I'm not going anywhere."

"I know you're not. I still didn't want to leave." I squeeze his hand gently, careful of the bandaging along his shoulder. "I've been sitting here thinking about something, actually. About what home actually means."

"That's a heavy thought for four in the morning."

"Probably. I've had a lot of time to think." I study his face, still pale from blood loss but steadier now than it was hours ago. "I spent the whole drive up this mountain telling myself this was temporary, a season away from my real life before I went back to everything waiting for me in LA. I don't think that's true anymore. I don't think it's been true for a while, actually."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying this mountain, this pack, you, this is home now. Not the temporary kind, not a season I'm passing through before returning to something else. This is where I actually want to be, permanently, whatever that means for my old life and my old career." I hold his gaze steadily, wanting him to understand exactly how certain I am. "I'm not going back, Kellan. Not to the tours, not to the constant exposure, not to a life where I never know if anyone actually wants me or just wants what I represent. I want this instead. I want you, and this pack, and a life that's actually mine."

"You don't have to decide that right now. Not while you're still processing how close I came to dying last night."

"I'm not deciding it because of last night. I'm just finally saying out loud what I've known for weeks." I lean down, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead. "I love you, Kellan. Completely, without reservation, whatever that means for the life I used to have. I choose this. I choose you."

"I love you too. More than I know how to properly say, especially after everything you did to keep me alive through that storm." His hand tightens around mine, steady despite his exhaustion. "I spent seventeen years convinced I'd never say those words to anyone again, certain that loving someone that much only ends in losing them. You've proven that conviction wrong every single day since you found out what I am and chose to stay anyway."

We stay like that for a while, the growing dawn light filtering weak through the den's opening, neither of us needing to say much more than what we've already offered each other. Eventually Rebecca returns to check his wounds again, and the practical business of recovery and pack strategy pulls us both back toward the reality still waiting outside this quiet moment.

Everett joins us not long after, expression grave despite clear relief at Kellan's improving condition. "Cross's people retreated fully overnight," he reports. "Scouts confirm they've pulled back to a staging area near the county road, regrouping rather than continuing the assault. But this isn't over. Last night proved they're willing to escalate to direct confrontation now that surveillance alone hasn't given them what they need."

"What's our next move?" Kellan asks, already trying to sit up despite Rebecca's protests about his injuries.

"We finish what we started. The misdirection campaign, refined now with everything we learned from last night's confrontation." Everett's gaze moves to me, something considering in it. "Cross's people caught fragments of impossible movement during the fight, enough to fuel their existing suspicions but nothing conclusive enough to constitute proof. If we can convince them what they witnessed was extreme fear and adrenaline distorting perception rather than genuine confirmation, we might still salvage our secrecy."

"How do we manage that?"

"Careful evidence, planted specifically to explain away what they think they saw. Enhanced human capability under extreme circumstances, misidentified wildlife, storm-related confusion. Enough plausible explanation that their own doubt does the work of dismantling their confidence for us." Everett's attention shifts fully to me now. "You understand media narrative better than anyone in this pack. I'd like your help crafting exactly the kind of explanation that would actually satisfy someone like Cross, someone who wants concrete proof but might accept plausible doubt instead if it's convincing enough."

"I can do that." Determination settles steady despite the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours. "I know exactly how people like Cross think, how they weigh evidence against expectation. If we give him a story that fits his existing biases about extreme human capability rather than the supernatural conclusion he's actually hunting, he might genuinely doubt what his own people reported."