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I can only stare at him.

He swallows hard, then lifts his chin as though bracing for me to argue. “You said choice matters, so let me choose this. Let me see you—all of you.”

The bond opens so wide for one dangerous second that I have to clamp down on it before he feels too much. Joy, fear, want, hunger, devotion, and the old loneliness lifting its head from the ground. He stands there in the moonlight, my human with ember-marked skin and tired eyes and courage he treats as common sense, asking for the face that frightened him because he does not want me divided into acceptable pieces.

Aestrata, Earth Mother—you have truly blessed me.

I nod once and move farther back into the clearing. Stay. Please.

He gives me a look that would make lesser predators reconsider their tone. “I wasn’t plannin’ to wander off during the ancient cryptid strip-and-shift show, but thanks.”

I ignore what I come to know as sarcasm, but it warms me even as my body begins to break its borrowed shape apart.

Human skin loosens first in sensation; the marks beneath it darken and rise. Bone shifts along my spine, stretching upward and outward, no longer folded small. Familiar pain runs through me, welcome after the constant pressure of compression. I feel the skull push out from beneath my skin, then settle and fuse over my human face. My antlers push free in heavy, branching relief, pulling a low sound from deep inside my chest.

My hands and fingers lengthen, nails darkening into claws, and the ground drops farther away as my legs reshape, joints returning to the angle made for speed. Fur sprouts coarsely from the waist down and crawls up the middle of my back, settling over muscle that no longer has to pretend to be human.

When it is done, the lantern materializes last, and I stand before him as I stood on the first night we came face to face. I wait for fear, but Lucas does not give me any.

His lips part and his head tips back as his gaze climbs my full height. Shock moves through him, yes, but different from before. Not the kind that has him running, but the kind that reaches. His scent changes with it, filling the clearing with open wonder that has my claws curling against my palms.

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

Through this form, the bond is easier. No folded threat, no too-small mouth, no human structure pressing meaning into narrow shapes. My mind reaches him cleanly, but I keep the touch soft. You see me.

Lucas nods without looking away, eyes still drinking in everything he sees. “Yeah, Onyx. I see you.”

The part of me braced for his retreat has nowhere to put itself.

Beautiful, he thinks, before he seems to remember that I can feel the edges of strong thoughts. “Oh, my god,” he groans, face turning red.

I lean down a little, unable to help myself. You think loud, Little Ember.

“I’m aware, thank you,” he says, dragging a hand over his face. “It’s a personal flaw.”

Not flaw.

He glances at me through his fingers, caught between embarrassment and awe. “You are enormous.”

I consider this. Bigger in true shape.

“Yeah, Onyx, I got that,” he says, dry as leaves.

There. Sarcasm again. I know it now. It feels like him standing with a knife made of humor between himself and too much feeling. I like it. I like too many things about him.

Your sharp mouth comes when soft-place shows, I send.

He drops his hand and stares at me, bewildered. “My what?”

I search for a better word. Sarcasm.

“Did you just psychoanalyze my sarcasm?”

I do not know psychoanalyze, but the bond gives me enough from him to understand it means I have touched a place he did not intend to show. I send back pleased warmth. Yes.

Lucas points at me. “You’ve been officially banned from learnin’ therapy language.”

Banned. Another word for held away; a boundary.