He shifts, grips my hips with iron strength, and slams into me so hard that I cry out. My insides clench around him, everything in me coiling and building toward an explosion I know is about to come. The world narrows to the two of us, the smell of sweat and earth, the sound of ragged breaths and skin sliding against skin.
He grunts, a guttural sound that reverberates through me, and my hands find the back of his neck, pulling him down to my lips. We kiss deeply, messy and wet, and when I come, I come with a sob, nails digging into his back hard enough to leave marks. Thorne buries his face in my neck, muffling his own groan as he finds his own release inside me.
We stay like that, heaving breaths, bodies still joined. He does not pull away, but slowly collapses against me, cocooning me in his warmth and weight. I stroke the nape of his neck, not wanting to move, to let this moment slip away.
"Thorne," I whisper after a moment. My voice sounds small, fragile.
He lifts his head, concern flickering in his eyes. "Are you alright?"
I nod, unable to find words that capture what I'm feeling. "Stay," I manage. "Just stay with me."
He brushes his lips against mine, sweet and lingering, and then settles beside me, still half-covering me, as if he can't bear to be apart. We lay there, tangled in each other, and it's as mucha claim as any vow spoken. His body tells me all I need to know, even if we don’t have the words.
Outside the cabin, the storm is growing. The wind howls through the trees, and lightning brightens the room for a second. I feel it in the shudder that runs through Thorne, his earth magic reacting to the electricity in the air. I hug him closer, anchoring us both in the dark.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur. “You’re safe here.”
He nuzzles my hair. “We’re safe here.”
Safe together. And for now, that’s enough.
But beneath my bliss, a tiny, gnawing thought bites at me:
How long can we have this?
What happens when the storm arrives and the hivemind comes back to claim me?
But for now, with Thorne’s heart beating against my chest, I push the thought away.
For now, we have this.
We can be enough.
THORN
The Grove doesn’t just breathe now.
Itsings.
It hums through the moss paths, pulses along the rootlines, flickers through the canopy with light that’s as much magic as it is memory.
It’s been a year.
One full turn of the moonwheel since Clara chose to stay—not because she gave anything up, but because shebuilt something better.
They call it the Eco-Magical Integration Program now.
EMIP.
I never remember what the letters stand for.
But I know what it means.
It means the line between human and Grove isn’t a line anymore. It’s a braid—stronger for every strand that wraps through it.
The program runs out of the new wing—expanded now into a living learning space. Kids from nearby towns, students from far-off academies, even a few magical species who used to keep their distance, now walk the Grove like it’s always been part of them.
And it has.
