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“Sure.”

“But you never investigated.”

Barrett shrugged. “Karloff ran tests, but they showed nothing useful. Bloodwork’s weird because of Frankenpunch anyway. He found markers he couldn’t explain, then found different ones in someone else. Said I had unusual responses around certain plants. I said I could’ve told him that without six needles.”

I sighed as I stared at him. “You are simultaneously one of the most observant people I’ve ever met and absolutely terrible at curiosity when it applies to yourself.”

“Works for me.”

I rose from the chair and moved around the table. Barrett watched me approach, his body going still in that familiar way that meant he didn’t know what I was about to do.

I stopped in front of him. “You don’t think any of this matters because it comes naturally to you.”

“It keeps trees alive.”

“That isn’t what I mean. You can propagate things that trained botanists can’t keep alive in laboratories. You sense changes in the forest before they happen. Plants survive for you because you somehow know what they need.” I touched the fur on his forearm. “And instead of thinking that makes you remarkable, you treat it like another job somebody needs you to do.”

Barrett’s gaze dropped to my fingers. “I’m useful.”

His words weren’t bitter or self-pitying. He was simply stating a fact he’d accepted so long ago that he no longer knew it could be questioned.

My throat tightened. “You are useful, Barrett. But you’re also kind and funny when you forget you’re pretending not to be. You’re absurdly patient with children. You apologize to trees before cutting them.”

His eyes lifted slowly to mine.

“That’s not about something you do, Barrett. It’s who you are.”

He stared at me. There was no joke waiting behind his mouth, no gruff response, no retreat into whatever task sat nearest.

I slid my hand into his. “You asked me once what I saw. I’m still looking, and I like everything I’ve found so far.”

His mouth parted slightly, his eyes softened, and beneath the surprise was such naked hope that I felt it in my chest.

“You say things,” he murmured. “Things nobody’s said before.”

I moved closer until my knees brushed his. “Maybe nobody was paying attention.”

His mouth curved, but I could still see the vulnerability beneath it. This enormous man, who could feel a sick tree through the ground, who could make impossible plants grow because some part of him simply knew how, had spent years believing the most remarkable thing about him was that he was useful.

But I was beginning to understand who he was at his core, how magnificent he was, even if he couldn’t see it himself.

And I wanted all of him.

Chapter 8

Hazel

I kissed him.

Barrett’s arm wrapped around me and drew me between his thighs, the movement easy and familiar enough that my body settled against his instinctively.

That was what had changed.

Three days ago, touching him had felt like discovery. Every piece of him had been new: the fur beneath my palms, the growl vibrating through his chest, the startling size of him, the care he took with claws capable of tearing through bark.

Now my hands knew where to go.

I slid my fingers into the fur behind his ear and felt his breath catch exactly as I knew it would.