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Mate touches. Mate stays. Mate chooses.

The thought moves through me in old instinct, but I keep it from rushing through the bond too hard. Lucas has taught me that not every true thing should be placed on him with its full weight. Humans need room around the truth. They need to turn it in their hands, scowl at it, insult it, and pretend they are not afraid of how much they want it.

My little ember does this often. He calls things ridiculous when they matter, and curses when tenderness gets too near.

I lean into his hand before I can stop myself, and his breath catches. The bond gives me the edge of his surprise, followed by a strange, shy pleasure he tries to bury.

“You like that?” he asks.

I open my eyes and look at him. The man-shape mouth wants to answer, but the words tangle. This body still feels wrong around speech—too tight in the throat, too small in the jaw. So, I use the bond-link gentler than before. Your hand quiets the hard places.

That changes his face. Heat rises under his skin, bright against pale cheeks and those scattered ember-marks I want to count with my mouth, my fingers, the flat of my tongue if he ever lets me. He looks away for half a breath, then back again, trying to look steady and failing in a way that pleases me deeply.

“That’s a hell of a thing to say to a guy,” he mutters, but his thumb moves once more along my cheek instead of pulling away. “You say stuff like that and then act confused when I short-circuit.”

Short-circuit. I know this one from the glowing rectangles humans hate and love. Something overloaded. Broken by too much current. His use is not literal; I understand that now. Human words often walk away from themselves.

I let the bond carry my amusement. Little Ember sparks too much.

He stares at me, then laughs briefly. “Okay, first of all, rude. Second, you’re gettin’ way too good at that.”

I do not know which part is rude. I save the word anyway.

His smile fades slowly, not into sadness, but thought. He lowers his hand from my face, and I feel the loss of it like cold, though cold has never troubled my body. The clearing stands silver around us, moonlight caught along ferns and the wet backs of leaves. The creek speaks beyond the slope. Above us, branches knit together and hold the night close.

He looks at me for a long moment. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

Always, I send.

His mouth twitches. “Dangerous answer.”

I wait because I am learning that sometimes he circles a question before he steps on it.

He rubs both hands down his thighs and looks past me at the trees, then back to my face. “I want to see you again.”

I tilt my head.

He huffs, already irritated with the misunderstanding before I understand there is one.

“Not this version. I mean, yes, this version too, obviously, because you’re unfairly distracting, and I’m still annoyed about that.” His eyes flick down my bare chest, then snap back up with a glare as though my body has committed an offense against his peace. “I mean your other form. The real one.”

All the warmth his touch gave me pulls inward. He must feel the change immediately; of course he would. He watches living things too well to miss when one goes quiet. “Onyx,” he says softly.

No.

The answer leaves me too quickly through the bond; blunt enough that he flinches even though I do not mean to strike.

I force the next meaning smaller and more careful around him. First face made you run.

“Yeah,” he says, and I can tell by his tone that he is about to be stubborn. “It did.”

Pain lances under my ribs at the memory. Him running from me, boots tearing through leaves, shock cutting the bond raw, and his den door closing between us. The nights without his dream-scent, without the chase, without the small thread of him that had become the only new thing in centuries.

I do not want to go back to that. I do not want to lose his eyes again.

I step back from him as the man-shape suddenly feels too fragile to hold what’s inside of me. My antlers press beneath the skin of my skull, a deep ache at both temples. The true body hears its mate’s request and rises toward it, eager and afraid in equal measure.

Lucas follows one step, and that stops me more completely than if he grabbed me. “Onyx, if I am your mate, then I have to get used to what you are. I can’t keep actin’ like the parts of you I understand are the only ones that count.”