The night they crossed back into Ashridge, the dream returned.
Not Mira’s dream of roots and Kellen’s admonitions.
Rafe’s.
He stood on the river again.
Water rushed under his bare feet. The opposite banks loomed—Ashridge’s pines on one side, Ironclaw’s rocky ridge on the other.
Mira stood there too.
Balanced.
Barefoot.
Her hair whipped in a wind he couldn’t feel.
“Again,” she said, exasperated. “We really need new dream material.”
He huffed a laugh.
“You’re in my head a lot,” he said. “You want variety, take it up with the Mother.”
“She’s not taking my calls,” Mira said.
The thing under the water shifted.
Dark.
Slick.
Tasting the edges of their bond.
This time, when it reached, something bit it.
Hard.
The Moon’s light.
Old, cold, relentless.
It hissed and recoiled, nursing scorched tendrils.
Mira’s wolf laughed in his chest.
Not so easy anymore, is it, it taunted.
The thing sank deeper.
“We did that,” Rafe said, awed.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Mira said. “It’ll just push harder somewhere else.”
He sobered.
“Probably,” he said.
She looked at him.
“You meant it,” she said quietly. “What you said. Awake.”
He swallowed.
“Yes,” he said.
She studied him.
“I’m not… there,” she admitted. “Not fully. Not the way you are. But…” She grimaced. “I’m… not running anymore. I’m… turning toward.”
Hope flared in his chest.
“Turning toward,” he repeated. “I’ll take it.”
She smirked.
“Lower your standards,” she said.
“Never,” he replied.
The river swelled.
The thing under it snarled.
Lightning flashed overhead—not from any storm he could see, but from somewhere above that.
The dream shifted, cracked.
He woke with his heart pounding.
The den was quiet.
Only the soft breathing of sleeping wolves, the faint crackle of banked embers.
His chest ached.
Not from the dream.
From something else.
He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the pallet.
He knew, before he even focused, that he wasn’t alone.
Mira sat in the doorway of the small guest den Ashridge kept for traveling wolves, knees drawn up, arms around them.
Her silhouette was dark against the faint light of dawn.
“How did you even get past our guard?” he asked softly.
She snorted. “Kai’s off-patrol hours are terrible. He snores louder than you. I walked.”
He smiled.
She didn’t turn.
“You felt it?” she asked. “Dream.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Thought so,” she muttered. “I woke up with wet feet.”
He frowned. “Really?”
She wiggled her toes.
“Metaphorically,” she said. “Idiot. My bones remembered standing on water.”
He exhaled.
“Sorry,” he said automatically.
She glared over her shoulder. “If you apologize one more time for things that aren’t your fault, I will sew your mouth shut.”
He raised both hands. “Threat noted.”
She turned back to the grey light creeping through the trees.
“The Moon bit it,” she said. “Good. It bit back elsewhere. Less good.”
He nodded.
“Wren told me,” he said. “About the den in the south. The cracked stone in the mountains.”
Her jaw worked.
“I keep thinking,” she said, “if we hadn’t… asked… that night, would those wolves be sleeping easier? Or would the thing have crawled up anyway, slower, quieter. Is a loud hurt better than a quiet one?”
He moved to sit beside her.
Not touching.
Close enough to feel her warmth.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I only know… hiding didn’t work before. For me. For you. For anyone.”
She huffed.
“Wise,” she said. “Gross.”
He smiled.
They sat in silence for a bit.
“Why are you really here?” he asked after a moment. “At my door. In the half-light. It’s very… dramatic.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I couldn’t sleep. Your snoring was marginally less annoying than Kai’s. I picked the lesser evil.”
“Liar,” he said gently.
She winced.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I… wanted… to see you. Before we go south. Before Joren and Wren and Corin and every elder with a stick up their ass starts pulling again.”
He swallowed.
“I’m here,” he said.
She made a face. “Obviously.”
He waited.
She took a breath.
“Back there,” she said, meaning Tevan’s den, meaning the eastern clearing, meaning under the Moon, “I saw you. Fighting. Pushing. Standing. I saw… who you are. Not just ‘Ironclaw’s teeth.’ Not just ‘the wolf who killed my brother.’ I saw… Rafe.”
His chest went tight.
“Mira,” he said softly.
“Don’t,” she warned. “Let me finish or I’ll lose my nerve.”
He shut his mouth.
She stared at the trees.
“I’m not good at… this,” she said. “Talking. Feeling. Saying the quiet parts out loud. Kellen was. He could spin a speech about the color of the sky. I grunt and stab things.” Her lips twisted. “But you… deserve… something. Since you… bared your throat to me. Metaphorically.”
He smiled faintly.
“I… want you,” she said bluntly. “There. That’s the word. Want. Physically. Emotionally. In the ‘I want to know what your face looks like when you laugh without flinching’ way. In the ‘I want to see you hold a pup that isn’t bleeding’ way. In the ‘I want to drag you into my bed and figure out what this heat between us actually does’ way.” She flushed. “Don’t… get a big head about it.”
His brain temporarily stopped working.
Heat shot through him, pooling low, his wolf practically howling with startled, feral delight.
“Mira,” he croaked.
She barreled on.
“But wanting isn’t the same as… ready,” she said. “I’m… getting there. Slowly. My wolf’s five steps ahead. My heart’s limping along behind. My head is waving red flags and screaming about curses and councils and history. So if you can… be… patient…” Her voice dropped. “I think I might… get to where you are. One day. And when I do, I don’t want to be holding back because I didn’t say this now.”
He stared at her.
For a heartbeat, all he could hear was his own pulse.
“You… want me,” he repeated, dazed.
She scowled. “Yes. Obviously. Keep up.”
He laughed, half-strangled.
“I’m trying,” he said.
“Try harder,” she muttered.
He reached out, very slowly.
His fingers brushed the back of her hand.
She didn’t pull away.
He laced their fingers together.
Her palm was warm, callused, faintly scarred.
The bond hummed, happy.
He smiled, incredulous.
“Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
She made a face. “Don’t make it a thing.”
“It is a thing,” he said. “A big thing. Huge.”
She groaned. “Regretting this already.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Too late,” he whispered. “You can’t take it back.”
She sighed.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll just… add it to the list of terrible choices I’ve made that somehow didn’t kill me.”
He chuckled.
They sat like that—hands tangled, shoulders almost touching—as the sky lightened from grey to pale blue.
The world outside their little doorway didn’t slow.
Wolves moved through the den, fetching water, stoking fires, gathering for patrol.
Some glanced their way.
Most didn’t.
Wren passed by once, eyebrows arched briefly, then kept walking without comment.
Kai saw them and grinned so wide Mira flipped him off with her free hand.
He laughed silently and vanished.
Rafe watched her profile as the light grew.
The urge to lean over and kiss her burned in his chest.
He didn’t.
Restraint.
Honesty.
Patience.
He’d promised.
She flicked him a sidelong look, as if sensing the direction of his thoughts.
“Don’t,” she said again, but softer now. Less warning. More… plea.
“I won’t,” he said. “Not until you ask.”
Her breath caught.
She looked back at the trees.
“Good,” she whispered.
But her fingers tightened around his.
Sparks.
Kindling.
Waiting.
The world around them crackled with its own fires.
Curses under the earth.
Elders under the stones.
Packs on the edge.
Between two blazes, they sat.
Holding hands.
Stupid.
Brave.
Alive.
For now, it was enough.
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