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He has a right to know. More than any human in Sweet Rivers, more than the lawman with his wall of names, more than Tom with his wary eyes and old warnings. Lucas is my mate. He is marked now. If the Varkhyn still lives, Lucas will not be merely another human scent in the trees.

He will be a beacon.

Jealousy in my kind is not small. In a Varkhyn, it is the deepest tree rot with antlers.

I will tell him soon. Not now, not while his body finally rests after sickness and sealing, not while his mind sleeps open and trusting against mine. If I place this in the dark now, it may crawl into his dreams, making him wake and reach for me with panic again. I will not make his mind a hunting ground for my guilt.

The promise steadies me enough to sleep.

I curl more carefully around him, claws turned away, antlers angled so they do not scrape stone, and keep my body between him and the den mouth. The forest breathes outside. No wrong scent crosses the hollow. No old hunger moves close enough for my body to rise. Lucas sleeps, and after a long time of listening to his heart, I follow him down.

Morning wakes me with his voice.

Not the voice he uses for me when he knows I listen. This is quieter. Private. A mutter meant for himself, soft with sleep and wonder and that sharp human habit of explaining feelings to empty air because the feelings have become too large to sit in silence.

I do not open my eyes.

Lucas is on top of me again, though he has moved during sleep. He straddles the lower part of my ribs, one knee on either side, his weight warm and careful.

He thinks I am still asleep. This pleases me so much I become very still. He leans closer, studying the markings across my chest. I feel his fingertips hover above them, almost touching, then draw back as if he is afraid of waking me. I keep the bond soft and quiet, holding my amusement behind a stone wall so he will continue.

“This is insane,” he whispers.

Yes, I think, but I do not send it.

He exhales slowly, then lowers one finger to a raised bark-dark line near my sternum. His touch is so gentle that it enters me like water through moss. Pleasure unfurls under it. I keep my eyes closed with great effort.

“You’re actually real,” he murmurs, tracing the marking along its curve. “I keep thinkin’ I’m gonna wake up in my cabin, and this’ll be a fever dream, which would honestly make more sense than whatever my life is now.”

His fingertip reaches the thicker fur at my side, and he pauses. Then he touches it too, stroking once with a careful, curious softness that nearly makes my tailbone press into the nest like a pleased animal.

“Of course you’re soft here,” he mutters. “Because apparently the universe looked at me and said, ‘You know what this man needs after gettin’ cheated on? A sexual awakenin’ at thirty-five with a forest guardian Death-deer.’”

That is where I almost lose my stillness.

Death-deer.

He has used this before, but never in this tone—low and scandalized and fond, as if he is insulting fate to hide the tenderness in his hand. His vocal twang sits in the words just enough to warm them, softened by city years but not gone. I like it most when he is tired. His voice comes closer to the place where he grew up.

He shifts his weight, still talking to himself. “Not even a normal sexual awakenin’, obviously. Couldn’t be some guy at a bar. Couldn’t be a nice divorced dad with a truck and normal hobbies. Nope, it had to be seven feet of ancient woodland giant with antlers, a skull face, and a pantry full of herbs like some cryptid grandma.”

Cryptid grandma.

I store this phrase for later use against him.

Lucas leans closer, squinting at one of the scars near my ribs where the marking breaks. His hand hovers over it, not touching. “What happened here?” he whispers, and the humor fades from him so quickly that my amusement softens with it. “You’ve got so many stories carved into you, don’t you?”

Yes. Too many.

His hand moves up toward my skull. He pauses before touching the edge of the fused bone, and I feel the little pulse of his uncertainty through the bond even though he tries to keep himself quiet. Then his fingers settle there, light as fern-shadow tracing a weathered ridge.

“Hi, terrifying face. Why are you so beautiful?” he whispers, then instantly winces at himself. “Jesus Christ, Lucas. Don’t talk to his skull like it’s a cat.”

I open my eyes, letting the blue glow show through the empty sockets, and he freezes.

For one perfect moment, my mate sits on my chest with his hand on the bone of my face, hair tangled, cheeks flushing brighter with each heartbeat, and the pelt slipping dangerously low because he forgot modesty while privately accusing me of being a Death-deer.

I let the bond open with warm amusement.