Page 154

His face changes then. Pain, anger, love. All of it there at once. “You saved me when we were boys. Then we kept using the same rescue after the danger changed.”

The bond twists. My alpha rises hard against the thought of releasing it. Every instinct I have screams to pull Ezra close, scent him, bite over the old mark, and make the promise stronger.

He smells the reaction. So does Pepper.

“No.” Her head lifts, and her palm strikes my chest. It doesn't hurt, but the look on her face does. Mud streaks her nose and chin. Rain runs over her cheeks. Her eyes shine with tears. “No, you do not get to turn loving him into another reason to hold tighter.”

“I’m trying to keep him alive.”

“He’s disappearing.”

The words rip through the graveyard.

Pepper’s breath stutters, but she forces out the rest. “My family kept this road for people who had to survive letting go. They had rules and protection and generations of knowledge, and no one taught me any of it.” Her voice grows rougher with every word. “They left me bouquets, recipes, and a prophecy everyone treated like a joke. Now I’m supposed to put that stone in Ezra’s hand and watch him walk away from us.”

Her first tear spills over. She wipes it away angrily. “I hate this.” Another follows. “I hate that this is the answer.” Her mouth crumples, but she keeps speaking. “I hate that I believe it.”

Ezra reaches for her.

Wes looks between the three of us, then toward the open cache. “I’m going to give you a minute. Evidence isn’t going anywhere.”

He steps beyond the canopy to check the perimeter, close enough to respond but far enough to give us privacy.

Pepper catches Ezra’s wet shirt and pulls him down. Then she kisses him. Hard. The force of it startles all of us. Her mouth crashes into his with anger, grief, and every ounce of omega need she has been holding inside her. Ezra grabs her waist and kisses her back, sinking into the mud with her.

Pepper makes a broken sound against his mouth. Her perfume bursts through the rain, peppermint bright and painful, rosemary torn open, vanilla pouring toward him as though her body can make a home strong enough to keep him in it.

When she pulls away, she’s crying and her nose is running. Mud smears across Ezra’s cheek where she holds him. Her breath comes in wet, furious gasps.

“This is my pack,” she says. “I didn’t even get to join it yet, and I’m already being asked to help take it apart.”

Ezra cups her face. “It isn’t falling apart.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No.”

She closes her eyes. The honesty hurts her, but she nods. Then Pepper turns to me. She fists the front of my shirt and drags me close. “You too.”

“Pepper.”

“You do not get to stand outside this because you’re scared.” She kisses me before I can answer.

Her lips are wet and trembling. Rain runs between our mouths. I taste salt, grief, and the sharp edge of her anger.

My alpha surges toward her. I cup the back of her head and kiss her deeper. She opens for me with a sob that breaks loose something in my chest. Her fingers hook behind my neck and hold me there while her scent floods through me.

Ezra folds around her back. Pepper reaches behind her and grabs him too. The three of us kneel in the mud beside the open grave, joined by hands and mouths. Pepper kisses Ezra again. Then me. Ezra catches my mouth over her shoulder, fierce and punishing.

Pepper presses her forehead between ours. Her crying has quieted to uneven breaths. “I want to keep both of you so badly that I can feel the wrong answer trying to convince me it’s love.”

The bond aches.

Ezra closes his eyes.

I hold both of them and understand there’s no grip strong enough to make this safe.

Pepper pulls back first. She wipes her face with her sleeve, sniffs hard, and reaches for the final document. Her hands leave brown marks across the protective cover.