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He exhales, and some tension unwinds in him. “So, if I come out there… you’ll come?”
I nod and send a pulse of reassurance through the bond. Always.
That seems to shake him more than it should. I feel it ripple through his chest; a small, stunned tenderness that catches on heartbreak and pulls. I feel him remembering something, a promise made by someone whose promises were made of paper and ash. My certainty lands differently because I do not know how to counterfeit it.
A tremor moves through the human shape. My vision dims at the edges, exhaustion dragging me down even toward where my body lies. The forest in the dream blurs, then steadies when I force more strength into it.
Little Ember sees that, too. “You need to go,” he says quietly. “And Onyx?”
Yes?
He hesitates, then steps closer one last inch. Not close enough to touch, just enough that his warmth reaches me through the cool dream air. “I’m sorry I ran from you.”
That’s the regret I’ve felt ever since I pulled myself back from him. I let the link carry my answer, even though it is slower now.
You saw… my true form and… it was too much. You ran to breathe, Little Ember. I understand.
His lashes lower briefly, then his eyes snap back to mine—so wide and clear. The beautiful color of moss and my treeline. “Little Ember?”
I nod. Red hair even in moonlight. I tap my chest. Warmth in… my cold hollow. Small compared to me, yes... but not weak. A thing that glows after fire has passed… and can start burning again… if given breath.
He goes quiet once more, and I worry I have done wrong again, even if his scent does not carry fear.
“My name is Lucas, but I don’t mind you calling me that,” he says, clearing his throat while looking down at the grass. “When I come back, don’t…” he looks back up at me, cheeks a deeper red than before, “don’t disappear again.”
The possessive curl in me likes the word ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ I answer it with a small pulse of agreement. Then, because honesty is much easier than comfort, I add, If I am a danger… to you, I pull away. Else, I stay.
“That’ll have to do,” he says, and offers me a smile—faint and tired, but beautiful enough to hit me again with how strange humans are. They can pull so much light into their faces with a tiny movement.
The dream thins around us. I can feel the edges of his sleep shifting toward waking, and my hold on the man-shape loosening. The clearing blurs at the far end, pines smearing into shadow, and I take a step back.
Sleep, Little Ember, I send through the bond. Find me.
The red returns to his face, stirring the old hunger in me. But I am too tired to hold the feeling for long.
“I will,” he says.
Then the dream gives way, peeling apart into moonlight, scent, and the last feeling of his attention on me. I let the human skin drop from my mind with painfully sharp relief.
I wake beneath the earth-warmed hollow of my nest with the name Onyx rooted inside me, and my mate’s question still bright in the bond.
Will I see you again?
Yes.
When he comes to the forest and his feet choose the trail, all he needs to do is look in the dark and find me already waiting there.
13
Lucas
Morning drags me up from sleep like a hook under my sternum. No gentle drifting, no warm stretch—just a hard snap into consciousness, every nerve already on a hair trigger.
I lie there for a second, tangled in sheets, trying to blink the dream out. Moonlight. Blue eyes. A name claimed and kept—and my body responds like it signed its own contract while I was out cold.
I’m hard—painfully, impossibly hard. The kind of throbbing heat that turns thought into static. I shove a hand under the blanket, palming the problem like pressure alone might talk it down.
It only gets worse, thick pulses dragging a groan out of me before I can bite it back, the fabric of my boxers already damp at the tip. I roll onto my side and curse under my breath. Everything aches, and every pulse echoes Onyx’s voice in my head.
