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A private sign. Brother-sign. Cruel because it remembers a time before rot and uses that memory as a hook.

He has learned to wear my trace. That means the forest can warn me only through things he cannot mimic. Silence too sudden, birds rising before he arrives, moss bending away from the ground where no scent lingers, or old trees tightening their roots around the places he touches. It may be enough for me, but not for Lucas.

Lucas walks the woods with my mark on him, and my scent woven into his skin.

My brother wants him.

Not as mate—never as mate. The thought is poison. Varkhyn do not understand the bond except as something to spoil. He wants Lucas because Lucas chose me. Because Lucas would not follow his lantern even when grief had hollowed him.

My Little Ember looked at a false light and turned away again and again. That refusal wounded the Varkhyn’s pride. My brother wants his fear now. His trust and his break.

I will not allow it.

This becomes the root of many mistakes.

At first, Lucas finds my guarding endearing. I can tell because he rolls his eyes while smiling, which means he is annoyed in a way that warms him. When I walk him back to the cabin and circle the clearing twice before letting him enter, he leans against the porch rail with tired amusement and says, “You checkin’ for assassins, Wildheart, or did a squirrel look suspicious?”

All squirrels look suspicious, I send, crouching near the woodpile where a fresh little track crosses damp dirt.

He laughs, and the sound loosens the tension in my shoulders. “You say that like you don’t fully mean it.”

I fully mean it.

“Yeah, that’s what worries me.”

When I scent around his truck before he drives to work, he crosses his arms and watches me with that soft-eyed fondness that makes my instincts puff themselves up like proud birds.

“You know,” he says, “most boyfriends just say drive safe.”

Boyfriend, I echo, because I like the word in his mouth even if it is too small.

He mutters something about ancient cryptids being emotionally exhausting, but he kisses me before climbing into the truck, so I know I have not done wrong yet.

Yet.

The line moves slowly.

I follow his patrol routes farther than I used to. I leave my own markers near the edges, not to claim him from himself, but to warn my brother away. I walk beside the cabin in true form after Lucas sleeps, testing every shadow and scent.

By the sixth day, Lucas grows quieter around it.

I should notice sooner. I do notice, perhaps, but I call it tiredness. I tell myself his silence comes from the strain of knowing the Varkhyn exists, from work, and from the old human life still tugging at him.

I do not call it the weight of my own fear pressing too close because that would require stepping back, and stepping back feels impossible when my brother is marking trees with my scent.

We are in his cabin, which no longer only feels annoying to me. It still steals him, yes, and the cold box remains a smug abomination, but my scent lives in the floorboards now. It is partly den now because he made room, and I learned not to hate every wall for existing.

Lucas’s phone lights up on the kitchen table. I dislike it immediately because the glowing rectangle has brought interruption too many times. Lucas glances at the screen, and the bond tightens with duty before his hand even reaches for it.

“It’s Tom,” he says, already answering. “Hey. Yeah, I’m here.”

I stand by the counter and listen. Tom’s voice comes thin and flattened through the device, but the meaning is clear enough.

Storm damage reported near North Ridge Service Road. A section of trail washed out. Campers may have ignored closure signs. Reyes asked for Ranger confirmation before sending deputies farther in because the road is half mud and all bad idea.

Lucas’s face changes as he listens. This is his work-face. Focused, steady, pulled inward around decisions. I loved it once. I still do. Tonight it frightens me.

“Yeah, I can check it,” he says. “I’m closer than Parker, and he’s off rotation anyway. I’ll take the truck as far as the service gate and hike the rest if I need to.”