Page 75

I crest the rise above the den hollow and see him below. He is in the little open patch just outside the root-hung entrance, human and frantic and beautiful in the worst ways. Shirt half buttoned wrong, hair a mess, boots unlaced enough that he must have pulled them on in a hurry.

He is turning in a tight circle, scanning the dark, breathing too fast. The scent of his panic wraps the hollow so thickly it almost drowns the den itself.

Then he sees me, and relief hits him so hard I feel it before his face fully changes. It breaks over the fear in one immense wave, washing it flat, and then he runs straight at me with the careless, desperate speed of someone who has already decided the only thing that matters is closing the distance.

“Onyx!”

26

Onyx

My name spoken like that almost makes me lose my footing.

I barely have time to stop before he reaches me. One second I am surging down the slope in my true shape, the next Lucas slams into me with trembling relief. His arms wrap as far as they can around my middle while my own go around him automatically. He does not seem to care what shape he finds; he only holds on tighter.

I bend over him instinctively, one hand sliding up into his hair, the other flattening between his shoulder blades to feel him properly under my palm.

I am here, Little Ember, I tell him, and the words come out rough because the panic-scent is still fading from my own body, too. What happened?

He shakes against me. For one breath, I think he is cold, but then I smell salt.

Tears.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he says, voice cracking against my chest. “I tried to sleep. I swear I tried. I was tired, and I kept telling myself I needed to stay home because I have work tomorrow, and I can’t just—fuck, I can’t just run into the woods every time I miss you.”

The words tumble out of him fast, too fast, each one pulled from some place in him that does not understand why it hurts. I hold him tighter, not to trap, only to give his body a boundary when his mind has lost one.

“I couldn’t settle,” he says, and his hands fist in the coarse fur along my spine. “The bed felt wrong. The cabin felt wrong. Everything was too quiet, but not in a good way. Then I smelled you, or thought I did, and I just… moved. I was outside before I fully knew what I was doin’.” He drags in a breath that breaks halfway. “I needed you. I needed you so badly it scared me.”

The knowledge sinks its teeth into me so deeply that, for a moment, I have no human thought.

I shift carefully, letting the true form soften at the edges. The change is rough because his panic has my own instincts snarling, but I force it slowly enough not to startle him. When I am in human shape, I sink to my knees in front of him and keep my hands on his arms.

Lucas looks beautiful, miserable, and embarrassed by his own tears. He wipes at his face angrily, which only makes more fall. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “This is so fuckin’ stupid. I don’t even know why I’m cryin’.”

I touch his face where his hand just was, catching the next tear with my thumb. The bond gives him my answer because my mouth still cannot.

Mate bond is newly sealed. Our bodies learned together, then woke apart. Heart does not know distance yet.

His eyes squeeze shut. “That sounds pathetic.”

No. I put more force into that than I intended, and he flinches only from surprise. I soften quickly, pressing my forehead to his. Not pathetic—new and raw. Human heart carrying old bond. It pulls hard before it learns soft.

A rough sound leaves him. “I hate how much that makes sense.”

I know. You hate many true things first.

He laughs once, watery and broken. “Don’t make jokes when I’m havin’ a breakdown.”

I shrug one shoulder. You laugh. Less breakdown.

“I hate you,” he whispers, but his hands come up and clutch at my shoulders.

No. You do not.

That draws another shaky laugh from him, and he drops his forehead against my chest. I wrap him in my arms again, still too warm for the night, still large enough to cover most of him. His crying slows by degrees. Each breath comes easier as my scent truly fills him instead of merely the thin echo his body chased through the dark.

“I thought you’d be mad,” he admits after a while. “Or disappointed. I don’t know. I thought I was doin’ it wrong.”