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He steps onto the porch, and I follow one pace behind, unable not to, and he looks back with a warning so sharp even my instincts flinch. “Don’t follow me, Onyx,” he says. “I mean it.”

The ridge—

“I heard you.” His voice breaks a little, and I watch him force it steady. “I heard all of it. Now you hear me.”

I stand inside the open doorway, every part of me straining toward him. He goes down the porch steps into the rain, and it feels like tearing off one of my own antlers.

He crosses the clearing fast, shoulders hunched against the downpour, flashlight beam cutting through the dark toward his truck. He does not look back again. The engine starts. Headlights flare across the trees, across my body, across the doorway, then he drives away toward the service road, toward North Ridge, toward the place my brother marked with my scent.

I remain at the threshold because chasing him now would make his words meaningless, and his words matter even when fear hates them.

Let me breathe.

I close my eyes and lower my head.

Aestrata, I think, though I do not know if she listens this close to human walls. Teach me the difference between guarding and holding too tight before my fear drives him further than my brother ever could.

40

Lucas

I’m in such a bad mood the following morning that Sarah Knox takes one look at me over the top of her coffee mug and decides not to say good morning.

That tells you something, because Sarah treats silence the way some people treat poison ivy. Useful from a distance, suspicious up close, and absolutely not something to touch unless there’s no other option.

She watches me cross the ranger station lobby, jaw tight enough to crack a molar. Then slowly lowers her mug, eyes narrowing as I shove through the little half door behind the counter and head for the back office where the radios live.

I feel her attention follow me, sharp and maternal in the least soft way possible, but she lets me pass. Wise woman. I’m one wrong word away from taking out my feelings on a trail maintenance schedule, and nobody deserves to see that.

The worst part is that I understand Onyx.

I do. That’s what keeps making me angrier, because if he were being cruel, if he were trying to control me because he liked control, I could set that down cleanly and call it what it was. But he’s scared. He’s ancient and powerful and terrifying enough to make every animal in a mile radius go still when he gets angry.

He’s scared because there’s another thing like him in the woods, a wrong thing, a thing wearing stories that should’ve belonged to him but got twisted.

He’s scared because I’m human enough to break.

I understand that. I even love him for part of it, which is inconvenient as hell when I’m trying to be furious. But for days now, he’s been everywhere. Not physically all the time, no, because Onyx has learned enough about human personal space to hover from the trees instead of directly over my shoulder.

The difference is mostly academic when your mate can make every bird shut up by standing menacingly behind a cedar. I’ve felt him on patrol. Felt him near the cabin. Felt the bond twitch every time the radio cracked, every time Tom gave me a route, every time I took my truck toward North Ridge like I was personally driving into a bear trap with a neon sign. Concern first, then warning, then that low, possessive pressure he tries to soften before I notice.

I noticed. Of course I noticed.

And last night, when the call came in about two hikers missing off North Ridge, and he stood in my doorway, human shaped and too still, telling me not to go, something I’d been pushing down finally bubbled up.

The hikers were real; the danger was real. I’m a ranger before I am anybody’s mate, and the fact that Onyx looked shattered when I thought that doesn’t make it any less true. Two people were lost in the cold and the dark while he asked me to stay so he could guard me.

So, yeah, I’m mad. I’m also feeling guilty. It’s a great combination. Very healthy. Extremely dignified. I recommend it to nobody.

The station smells like burnt coffee, printer heat, damp canvas, and old wood, all of it more irritating than usual. Parker is at the equipment table when I walk in, sorting trail flags into color-coded bundles. He glances up, sees my face, and whistles low under his breath.

“Well, hell,” he says, leaning one hip against the table. “Who kicked your dog?”

I open the metal cabinet harder than necessary and start checking the first-aid packs, even though I checked them yesterday and the day before because apparently stress turns me into a man who alphabetizes gauze. “Don’t have a dog.”

“Your truck, then.”

“My truck’s fine.”