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Not treating me like I was breakable, but treating me like I was… important.
My throat swelled again at the care he was showing me.
Was that a green flag?
It felt like a green flag.
But before, everything that had felt green had really been red, so I wasn’t sure.
“You need to rest. We’ll stay here for the night.” His voice wasn’t hard, but it wasn’t soft, either.
That wasn’t up for debate.
“The last thing I want is for you to fall off my back while we’re running, Rory,” he added.
“It’s fine. You don’t need to explain it to me.” I went to pull his hands off my hips, carefully, and he released me before I even had to touch him.
That was new, too.
“Of course I do. You deserve to know the reasoning behind what we’re doing and where we’re going.” There was a bit of growl to his voice that made my body warmer.
“Thank you.” I didn’t want to let myself think about the potential flag-color of that comment, so I walked over to the creek and kneeled down, cupping water and bringing it to my lips again.
Amarok joined me, and we drank silently. He picked more of the fruit we’d had for lunch, showing me how to identify the tree it grew on in case I was ever alone in the forest. I seriously hoped that would never happen, but it seemed smart to know anyway.
Then we sat down and ate, falling into more of the earlier silence.
My mind was on the sleeping arrangements, which neither of us had brought up yet.
We waited until we were done eating, and then Amarok cleared his throat.
I closed my eyes for a long moment before looking over at him.
“It gets cold at night, this high in the Peaks. If you would prefer to sleep alone, I understand completely, but if you need warmth, I am more than willing to share mine. I’ll be sleeping in my wolf form, as well, so there would be less discomfort.
Damn.
Green flag?
Red flag?
I had no idea.
Really, I just needed to stop thinking about flags.
“Let’s just try sleeping alone and we’ll see how we do,” I said, giving him a small smile.
“Of course.”
The suns were nearly gone, and darkness was quickly engulfing us, so I went ahead and curled up on the stone. I was so tired, I was sure I’d fall asleep almost instantly.
As expected, I was sleeping peacefully a few minutes later, with plenty of distance between me and the wolf.
three
RORY
My sleep lastedall of two or three hours.
