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The skull presses forward and settles over his face, fused bone, weathered and pale. His antlers break free in black branches, heavy and beautiful, and he lowers his head slightly to keep them from scraping the stone above. Claws lengthen. Fur lifts, coarse along his spine, and when his eyes burn pale through the skull sockets, my chest pulls tight with something that isn’t fear at all.

Awe, maybe. Need, too. Love would be a reckless word this early, so naturally my brain grabs it and hides it under a tarp.

The den seems to breathe easier the moment he stands in his true form again, as if the room itself recognizes him more clearly this way. And God, he is beautiful.

Onyx lowers himself into the nest with exaggerated care, his huge body folding around me as if I’m made of glass instead of bad decisions and unresolved issues.

I crawl closer before he can finish arranging himself and press my chest to his side, one hand sinking into the thick black hair at his neck. He freezes for half a second, and the bond fills with such raw pleasure that I have to close my eyes.

“You can hold me,” I murmur.

His arm comes around my back, massive and warm, claws turned away, his weight grounding me so thoroughly I almost hate how badly I needed it. My cheek rests against slate skin. His scent fills my lungs.

The bond hums low between us, warm and steady, and I finally understand that the ache in the cabin wasn’t only loneliness. It was my body reaching for the place where it had learned to be safe.

I should sleep. I’m exhausted enough that my bones feel hollow, but being back here has woken up my curiosity instead. That’s always been one of my worst traits. Give me a mystery and a bad emotional state, and I’ll ask questions until someone threatens to sedate me.

So, I do the obvious, sensible thing.

I climb on top of him.

It’s awkward because Onyx in true form is enormous, and straddling him is less like straddling a person and more like trying to sit on a warm, breathing boulder with antlers. His hand comes up to steady my hip, careful and firm, and the pale light of his eyes sharpens inside the skull.

Little Ember starts trouble when tired.

“I’m not starting trouble,” I say, settling more comfortably over his lower ribs. “I’m conductin’ an interview.”

Same thing with you.

“Rude.”

Accurate.

I point at his skull. “You’re lucky you’re hot.”

The bond goes very still, then warms with pleased confusion. Temperature?

“Oh, don’t you start.”

His amusement brushes through me, dry and wicked. Too late.

I shake my head, smiling despite myself, and rest both hands on his chest where the bark-dark markings rise beneath my palms.

“Tell me about you,” I say, and the playfulness fades a little because I mean it. “How you came to be. Aestrata. All of it.”

Onyx quiets beneath me. Not in the wary way, but in the reverent way.

Then his voice fills my mind, low and rough, and clearer than it used to be, shaped by the bond until it feels less like words and more like an old story being remembered through marrow.

Aestrata walked the first forests when they were still wet from making. She saw the creatures of the world run and burrow and root and bloom, saw rivers carve their own mouths and mountains hold the bones of fire beneath them, and loved it all enough to fear what would happen when clever hands learned to cut faster than the earth could heal. So she shaped watchers.

She made us when the earth still had many untouched places. Not from a womb as humans come. Not born crying, but shaped and called. Root, bone, hunger, night-sight, storm-memory. She named my kind Cervari and set us where the land needed protection.

A shiver runs through me. “Guardians.”

Yes. Guardians of earth. Forest. Ridge. Old water. Places that remember before human names. We were made to keep balance, not peace. Peace is often a human word for wanting nothing sharp nearby.

I huff softly. “That’s uncomfortably fair.”