Page 141

By the time we tumble into the kitchen, we’re soaked and laughing. Before we can even dry off, my phone buzzes on the counter. I wipe water from my eyes and grab it.

Mrs. Delaney: Ms. Silver found a box with Vines written on the side. Garden Guild storage shed. Come get it before the weather turns ugly.

Another crack of thunder shakes the window.

Theo sets me on my feet but keeps one arm around me.

Rain pounds the dock until the boards shine white in the dark. Ms. Silver has the box, but it looks like the storm has blocked the road.

Chapter 32

Ezra Heron

The woman in my dream wears swamp lilies around her wrist. These are tied with white thread, tight enough that the stems bruise green against her skin. Rain slides down her face. She walks barefoot through black water that should swallow her to the knees, but the path keeps rising beneath her, root by root, stone by stone, as if the land is making a road for her because she has chosen to take it.

Behind her, an alpha follows.

No. That’s not right. He wants to follow, but he stands where the trees open, shaking so hard I feel it through the dream. His hands are fists at his sides. His mouth is open around a sound he refuses to make. The beta is closer to the water. He has both hands over his mouth.

That is the part that hurts. The beta wants to call to her. Every inch of him wants to, but he doesn’t.

A voice I don’t recognize says, love that cannot let go is not love.

The woman reaches a circle cut into the wet ground, and the alpha takes one step. The land answers before he can take another. Water lifts. Wind bends. A carved tooth flashes pale in his hand. The sky opens wide and bright, and the road becomes a trap.

I wake with Theo’s name caught in my throat.

At first, I don’t know where I am. Rain lashes the windows. The room smells like storm air, Pepper’s peppermint-vanilla warmth, and Theo’s leather-bourbon comfort under all of it.

Pepper sleeps between us, one cheek pressed to Theo’s chest and one hand curled around my wrist as if she caught me before I could drift.

Theo is awake. He often is.

His eyes find mine over Pepper’s hair. “Bad dream?”

I nod. The words feel too small for what just crawled through my skull.

Pepper stirs. Her scent shifts first, rosemary rising sharp. “Ezra?”

“I’m here.” I turn my wrist until I can lace my fingers through hers. “Weird dream. Very wet. Poorly lit. Needed captions.”

She blinks herself awake, curls all over her face. “Was it another cemetery dream?”

“Older, I think.” I swallow. “There was a woman walking with lilies tied to her wrist. There was an alpha behind her trying not to follow and a beta trying not to call her back.”

Theo tenses in the way that means every part of him is listening.

Pepper pushes onto one elbow. “Trying not to call her back?”

I look at her, then at Theo. “It felt like the point. Like the whole thing depended on them letting her walk away.”

Thunder rolls over the cemetery, low and ugly.

Pepper’s fingers tighten around mine. “A release path.”

“Maybe.” I look toward the dark window. Rain sheets down the glass so hard the outside world is only movement and black. “But the dream went wrong at the end. The alpha moved. It felt like the land answered. I saw a tooth in his hand.”

Theo’s purr stops.