The next night, she woke to heat.
Not magic.
Body.
Her own.
It was late. The infirmary was dim, the fire banked to coals. The air had cooled; her skin hadn’t.
She lay on her side, breath shallow, blanket twisted around her legs. A dream clung to her like humidity—fragments of touch and teeth and fur and the solid press of a body against hers.
His body.
She swallowed.
This was new.
For three years, her nights had been mostly the same—either empty, blessedly numb, or full of blood and stone and the sound of her wolf screaming as she was ripped away. Her body had responded accordingly—numb, or tense, or aching in the wrong ways.
Desire hadn’t touched her in… gods. She couldn’t remember.
Now—
Her nipples tightened under the thin shirt she wore to sleep. Heat throbbed between her thighs, a slow, insistent pulse. When she shifted, her skin felt oversensitive, like she’d lain in the sun too long.
She was wet.
Mortification flooded her.
From a dream.
Of Bram.
“You are an adult,” she told herself sternly in the darkness. “You are allowed to want. Even if your wolf doesn’t pull.”
Her body didn’t care about speeches.
Images flashed unbidden—the way he’d looked in the training yard, sweat-slick and laughing. The way his mouth had felt brushing hers—soft, startled, full of held-back hunger. The way his wolf had pressed against her emptiness, a heavy, steady weight.
Her hand drifted down.
She stopped it halfway.
Shame warred with need.
Mara snored from her chair near the hearth. Idris muttered something about “too much willowbark.” Tansy shifted in her sleep, blanket rustling.
Lira stared up at the ceiling.
She could ignore this. Let it fade. Focus on ropes and stones and ravines.
Pretend she wasn’t starving for touch.
Not just comfort.
*Want.*
Her fingers twitched.
Her wolf had been the one to flare hot when a scent hit right. To drag her into tangled beds with laughing packmates when she’d been younger, high on moonlight and shared heat. Without it, she’d assumed that part of her was… gone.
Apparently not.
Or maybe Bram’s wolf was making up the difference.
She swallowed.
Slow burn, she reminded herself. She’d told him she wanted time. He’d agreed. At least with his human mouth. His wolf was another story.
He was also in the infirmary.
She realized that suddenly, sharply.
She could *feel* him.
Not in the broad, pack-sense way. In the thin thread between his wolf and her emptiness.
He wasn’t asleep.
His presence was awake, alert. Pacing, metaphorically, at the edge of her hollow.
She stiffened.
*Shit.*
Had he… felt her?
Not like that, she thought desperately. The bond wasn’t that open. It was mostly magic. Not… arousal. Right?
“Probably,” she muttered to herself.
A floorboard creaked.
She froze.
“Lira?” his whisper came from the dark.
Her heart leapt into her throat. “Yes?” she hissed back.
“You… all right?” he asked.
No.
“Yes,” she lied. “Go back to sleep.”
A pause. “You’re lying again,” he said softly.
She groaned, dragging the blanket over her head. “Will you stop… feeling… everything?” she whispered.
“I’m not *trying,*” he protested quietly. “It’s just… loud.”
“What is?” she asked warily.
“You,” he said, and she could hear the flush in his voice. “You’re… buzzing. Not… like magic.” He cleared his throat. “Like… heat.”
Mortification turned to panic. “You can… feel that?” she squeaked.
He made a strangled sound. “Not… clearly,” he said. “Just… edges. Like smell through a wall. I’m not… spying. I swear.”
She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her.
“I hate this,” she muttered.
“Which part?” he asked. “The bond? The… wanting? Both?”
She flinched. “Bram—”
“I can leave,” he said immediately. “If it’s… too much. Sleep in the hall. Or the training yard. Or Corin’s bed. He’d love that.”
A hysterical giggle bubbled up. She clamped it down. “He’d kill you,” she whispered.
“Worth it,” he said.
Silence stretched.
“Do you… want to be alone?” he asked, tone gentler. “Truly. I’ll go if you say.”
The last thing she wanted right now was more of his presence.
But the thought of him leaving—
Her emptiness recoiled.
“I don’t… know,” she admitted. “My body is… being an ass.”
He choked on another laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “Mine too.”
That shouldn’t comfort her. It did.
She pushed the blanket down just enough to peek over it.
He sat on his own cot, across the narrow aisle, bare feet braced on the floor. The faint light from the coals picked out the line of his throat, the curve of his shoulders, the shadow of his scar.
His hands were clenched on his knees.
“Come here,” she whispered, before she could swallow the words.
His head snapped up. “Lira—”
“Not… for that,” she said quickly. “Just… here.” Her throat worked. “Please.”
He hesitated.
Then he stood.
The few steps between their cots sounded louder than they should have. Every creak seemed to echo. Every breath felt stolen.
He sat on the edge of her bed, careful, like she might bolt.
“What… do you need?” he asked quietly.
She swallowed. “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s… the problem.”
He huffed softly. “You want me to… hold your hand?” he offered, half-teasing, half-serious.
“Maybe,” she said. “But that might… make it worse.”
“Probably,” he agreed.
She shifted, making room. “Lie down,” she whispered.
His eyes widened. “Lira…”
“On top of the blanket,” she clarified quickly. “At the edge. Not… *with* me. Just… next to me. I… don’t want to… feel like this… alone.”
He exhaled, a sound somewhere between relief and fresh hunger. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah. I can do that.”
He moved carefully, stretching out along the outside edge of her narrow cot. Their shoulders brushed. Their hips didn’t quite. The blanket lay between them, a thin, symbolic barrier.
He smelled like soap and smoke and that deeper Bram-scent that made her empty places ache.
She stared at the ceiling. “This is… stupid,” she whispered.
“Probably,” he said. “But I’m not complaining.”
His hand lay inches from hers on the blanket.
She inched her fingers over until they touched.
He sucked in a breath.
“Just this,” she warned. “For now.”
“Just this,” he echoed.
His fingers laced with hers.
The immediate, physical need—the throbbing between her thighs, the tight ache in her chest—didn’t vanish. But it… shifted. Spread out. Became something she could breathe around.
“Better?” he asked after a minute.
“Yes,” she said. “Worse. Both.”
He chuckled softly. “Same.”
She turned her head.
In the dim, his profile was all hard lines and soft shadows. Scar and stubble and lashes too long for someone who glared that much. His mouth was a firm curve.
She wanted to kiss it again.
She looked away.
“You know,” she murmured, “this is going to… make it harder… later. When we… pull back.”
He was quiet for a long beat. “Do you want to?” he asked. “Pull back?”
Common sense screamed *yes.*
Her heart—her emptiness—said *no.*
“I… don’t know,” she said. “I’m… afraid. Of… wanting… more than… we can have.”
He squeezed her hand. “We don’t know what we can have yet,” he said. “Pack. Magic. Fate. They’ve all… played rough. Maybe this time they’ll… be less of an ass.”
She snorted quietly. “Optimist.”
“Realist,” he said. “I see what’s in front of me.”
“What’s that?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
“You,” he said simply. “In my bed. Well. Under. Near. Close enough that if I breathe too deep, I smell you in my lungs for hours. Close enough that my wolf doesn’t whine. Close enough that I remember what I’m fighting for when the ravine hums.”
Her eyes stung again. “You… were… before,” she whispered. “Fighting for them. For Ashridge. For… your patrol. Before me.”
“I was fighting *against* something,” he corrected. “Now I’m fighting… toward.” His thumb stroked over her knuckles. “That’s… different.”
She had no response to that.
So she lay there, hand in his, heat still simmering in her belly, magic humming low, and slowly, eventually, sleep dragged her down—not empty, not screaming.
Held.
When she dreamed, it wasn’t of ravines or rivers.
It was of lying in a field of long grass under a soft moon, Bram’s wolf curled around her human form, his head heavy on her stomach, her fingers buried in his fur.
The land hummed dưới them.
Not wrong.
Not perfect.
But getting there.
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