I blink. “What?”
Color floods her cheeks. “I read this shifter book once and the wolf guy had this, uh,thingon his”—she gestures vaguely between us where we’re still joined—“and I thought maybe this is the knitting part?”
The laugh punches out of me, helpless and fond. This woman is brave, resilient, and achingly innocent. “Knotting,” I correct, brushing my nose against hers. “With an‘O’. We’re not making a scarf.”
She groans and covers her face. “Oh, my Gods. How embarrassing.”
“Lucky for you, I’m terrible at purling,” I murmur, grinning, feeling lighter than I have in years.
She peeks at me through her fingers. “So… knotting is real?”
I smooth the hair from her temple. “In our shifted forms… I don’t know. I’ve never—” I swallow. “I’ve never had anyone to try with. Maybe it’s different for me. Maybe it happens. Maybe it doesn’t.” I search her eyes, suddenly shy for a man with my past. “Maybe we'll find out someday. Together.”
We both know I’m talking about more than anatomy. It’s me asking if she’ll stay.
Her hand slides to my jaw, thumb warm against my cheek. “I think I’d like that.”
The bond hums, low and certain. I exhale like I’ve been underwater. “Good,” I whisper, pulling her closer, keeping myself nestled inside her because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. “I like this part with you, even when there’s noknittinginvolved.”
She laughs, soft and drowsy, and tucks her face into my throat. “Me too. Especially with you. Thank you for… all of it. For going slow. For making it feel like a choice, not a destiny.”
Emotion hits me so hard that my throat goes tight. “Itisa choice. Every time. However you want it. Whenever you want it. If you want to stop, to sleep, to talk… I’m here.”
She nuzzles closer, hooking her leg over my hip, keeping me inside her like she doesn’t want to lose the connection. “I want this,” she says, voice drifting toward drowsiness. “I wantyou.”
Relief courses through me as I press a kiss to her hairline. “You have me.”
Outside, the forest hushes. Inside, the fire settles into a soft, shifting mass of coals. And I hold my mate like I’ve been waiting my whole life to learn the shape of this peace.
Chapter 10
Scarlett
The dream slides on like silk. I move, but the body isn’t mine.
It’s thinner and lighter, honey-scented with lavender and woodsmoke. The room around me tilts, blurs, and resolves into Ruby Cottage. I can hear the clock’s soft tick, the hearth’s slow sigh. The wards hum in the walls like nervous bees.
Grandma?
The question barely forms before it answers itself. I’m inside her. Riding her breath. Wearing her worry as she wakes from a nap in the armchair, the blanket slipping from her knees.
Where is she?
Her fear and worry for my safety slip through me like smoke. Rising calmly, she presses a palm to the doorframe, feeling for thin places. The wood hums back: not broken but not as robust as it should be.
Her head whips around at a tap on the window.
Black as spilled ink, the crow perches on the sill and cocks his head. Moving quickly, she unlatches the window, her fingers deftas she unties the ribbon from his leg. A scrap of paper falls into her palm.
Safe. Her thoughts sigh through me as she reads the note.Scarlett is safe.
Relief loosens Grandma’s chest so sharply that I feel it in my ribs.
“Thank you, boy,” she whispers, stroking the crow’s throat. He blinks as if he understands.
Grandma scribbles a note on the back of an old shopping list—Scarlett is safe. Call off the search. My thanks, E—and uses the ribbon to re-tie it to the crow’s leg.
She presses the crow to her cheek for one second, then lifts him to the open pane. “To Xander and Galina,” she tells him, voice firming. “Straight there. Then back to me. Don’t dawdle.”
