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I drum my fingers on the island. “Shut up and make my dinner. I’m hungry.”

He laughs and does as I ask.

“We will talk about that later,” I add. “I’m just lost in my thoughts.”

He shakes the pan. “What I’d give to live in that beautiful mind of yours.”

After dinner, Ezra tugs me up from the island by my hand. He keeps our fingers laced and doesn’t say a word on the way upstairs. We already have a routine. He brushes his teeth while I wash my face. By the time I slide into my nightgown, he’s in his sweatpants. We climb into bed, and the quiet is the good kind now.

We turn on our sides toward each other in the dark. His breath is warm on my cheek. He cups my hip and strokes his thumb through my nightgown.

“I’m not taking back what I said to your father,” he says. “I meant it. I just shouldn’t have said it in front of everyone.”

I laugh at that. “You better hope Angie doesn’t call Aaron.”

Ezra shrugs. “I know Aaron. He’s one of my best friends.”

I suck my teeth. “Then you know how much he doesn’t play about his mother.”

That shuts him up. His thumb stops moving. Aaron loves Angie fiercely. If she tells him what Ezra said, that he threatened the pack and my dad too… friendship might not matter.

“I’ll handle it,” he mutters, but he sounds a lot less sure of himself.

I reach out and touch his face. “What are you so afraid of, Ezra? Really?”

He takes his time answering. “Losing you. That’s all I’ve ever been afraid of. Since you were a pup, from the moment I first caught your scent, the only thing that’s terrified me is the idea of you not being in my life.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” I tell him.

He covers my hand with his and presses it harder against his cheek. “You don’t know that. Today, when you went under the water… I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. All I could do was watch you disappear, and I was sure that was it. That Mother Fate was punishing me for something.”

I curl my fingers along his jaw. “Ezra…”

“I’ve waited so long for you.” He tucks me in tight against him. Up this close, all I can smell is woodsmoke and warm skin. “I can’t lose you now. Not when I finally have you.”

I kiss him the way I’ve never let myself before. He growls into my mouth and kisses me back harder. When we come up for air, he’s blinking at me. My wolf is pleased with herself over that. I’m not much better.

“I’m scared too,” I admit. “Of losing myself. Of giving up everything I’ve worked for just to be someone’s mate.”

“You won’t,” he says.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Because I won’t let you.” He slides his hand to the back of my neck. “You want to work with pups and hatchlings. You’ve been working so hard on your studies and your training at the medical center. You want more than just being a mother and a mate.”

I gape at him. “You… you actually listened when I talked about that?”

“I listen to everything you say, Aya. Every single word.” He pulls the blanket up to my chin. “You’ll have your career. You’ll have your dreams. And you’ll have me. They’re not mutually exclusive.”

My wolf eggs me on to get the rest of it out while I’m brave. “I want my home in Ash Clan,” I blurt. “I do not want to raise our hatchling-pups here on the community lands.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll speak to Valek tomorrow. We’ll go together. I’ll make it work, Aya. I promise you.”

“I hated it here,” I confess. “When I was a pup, when my mom left the pack for a little while, we had to live on the community lands. I felt so alone. I can’t raise our babies feeling that way.”

He kisses me. “You won’t. Our little ones will grow up in Ash Clan, surrounded by family and love. I swear it.”

I sniff hard and poke him in the side. “You’re making a lot of promises tonight.”