*Sage*
The first time I lied over the radio, my mouth tasted like copper.
Kieran stood three feet away, arms folded, shoulder propped against the cabin wall. From the outside, he looked relaxed. Inside, he was a storm—jaw clenched, eyes narrowed, every line of his body tuned to the little box in my hand.
The old field radio crackled, its metal case dented from years of bouncing around in trucks and backpacks. Mara had insisted we use this instead of my newer satellite phone.
“Less…reach,” she’d said. “Less chance your words go somewhere we can’t follow.”
I’d wanted to point out that analog waves could be intercepted too, but the look Kieran gave me had shut that right down.
Now, at 10:58 a.m., the radio hissed with static and anticipation.
“You don’t have to do this,” Kieran said quietly.
“Yes,” I did. “I really do.”
My thumb hovered over the transmit button.
“What if you freeze,” he asked. “What if you say too much. What if they hear something in your voice—”
I shot him a look. “You’re really pep-talking the crap out of this.”
He exhaled slowly. “I’m saying we can find another way.”
“Like what?” I asked. “Forged emails? A mysterious note from a fake boyfriend saying I’ve gone to Mexico to find myself?”
His lip twitched. “Do you have a fake boyfriend?”
“Do you have a real sense of timing?”
His eyes sparked—annoyance, amusement, something more complicated beneath.
Before he could answer, the radio crackled to life.
“Holloway, this is Bozeman FWS field office, come in. Over.”
My heart leapt into my throat.
Bozeman.
Kim.
I pressed the button, forcing my voice into something approximating normal.
“This is Holloway,” I said. “I read you. Over.”
Static hissed. Then: “You’re late, Sage. You fall off a mountain or just forget how clocks work? Over.”
I almost laughed in pure relief.
Kim.
Alive, sarcastic, maddeningly normal.
“I, uh…” My gaze flicked to Kieran. His expression was carved stone. “Had a minor…incident at the tower. Over.”
“Define minor,” Kim said. “You sound…off. Over.”
My throat tightened. I hadn’t factored in the fact that she *knew* me. Not just my voice, but my moods. My tells.
I reached for the mental script I’d rehearsed all morning.
“Slipped on some ice,” I said. “Hit my head on the ladder. Mild concussion, maybe. I’ve been resting up. Over.”
A pause.
Then: “You alone right now? Over.”
My fingers stiffened on the radio.
“Yes,” I lied. “Like usual. Over.”
Kieran’s jaw ticked.
“Is the tower functional? We saw the solar output dip on the last check-in. Over.”
“Panel’s…iffy,” I said. That was actually true, at least two days ago. “It’s been overcast. I’m switching to the backup generator when needed. Over.”
Another pause, longer this time. I pictured Kim in the Bozeman office, headset on, leaning back in her chair, frowning at the audio meters.
“You want a med evac?” she asked finally. “We can get a chopper to the ridge by late afternoon. Over.”
Air moved weirdly in the cabin, like the pressure dropped.
Kieran straightened.
This was it. The fork in the road. One word from me, and a helicopter would come whining over the valley, bright and loud and full of paramedics and questions and the blinding fluorescent light of my old life.
They’d strap me to a gurney, hook me to monitors, scan my brain.
They’d find…nothing.
Because the damage wasn’t something CT could detect.
“Sage.” Kim’s voice softened. “Talk to me. Over.”
My grip tightened.
I thought of Cassian’s eyes on me at the treaty stone. The way he’d said *toy.* The way the air had thrummed around us, old magic vibrating in my teeth.
I thought of the pups rolling in the snow, their laughter, their sharp little teeth. Of Mara’s lined hands grinding herbs. Of Rafe’s sarcasm. Of Edda teaching a kid how to throw a snowball with just the right spin.
Of Kieran standing in front of me like a wall.
If I called for evac, I wasn’t the only one who’d be airlifted out of this valley.
They’d come for me. They’d find *them.*
And Cassian would be right there, teeth bared, ready to use the chaos.
I swallowed hard.
“No evac,” I said. “I’m sore and a little dizzy, but I can walk, talk, piss by myself. It’s fine. Over.”
“You sure,” Kim said. “That’s a hard no to free painkillers and hot nurses. Over.”
“I have…healers,” I said, then winced at my own choice of words. “I mean, a very well-stocked first aid kit. You know me. Paranoid about safety.” I forced a laugh. It sounded thin even to my ears. “Over.”
Kieran’s gaze drilled into the side of my face.
“You’re not paranoid,” Kim said. “You’re usually over-prepared. This is the first time you’ve gone radio-silent for more than twelve hours without warning. Over.”
Guilt lanced through me.
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I slept. A lot. I…I think I needed it. Over.”
Silence.
Then: “You sound…different,” she said slowly. “Lighter, somehow. Over.”
I blinked.
“Concussion-induced personality shift,” I said weakly. “Probably temporary. Over.”
She snorted. “If you start writing poetry about wolves, I’m dragging you back myself. All right. Here’s the deal: you check in once a day, same time. If you miss two in a row, we send someone up. I don’t care if it’s snowing frogs. Over.”
A knot in my chest loosened.
Daily check-ins. Not nothing. Not freedom. A line stretched between worlds, humming.
“Deal,” I said. “Over.”
“You get worse, you call,” she said. “You start seeing double, throwing up, forgetting my birthday, you call. Over.”
“I forgot it last year,” I said. “Over.”
“That was a test,” she shot back. “You failed. Over.”
Emotion clogged my throat.
“I’m okay, Kim,” I said quietly. “Really. Over.”
“Liar,” she said, with more affection than heat. “But I can’t fix what I don’t know about, and you’re stubborn as hell. So…watch your step. Watch the weather. And watch your wolves. Over.”
My breath stuttered.
“Yeah,” I said. “Always. Over.”
“Bozeman out,” she said.
The radio hissed, then fell quiet.
I stared at it.
My hand shook.
Kieran’s shadow fell over me. He gently pried the radio from my fingers, set it on the table, and flicked the power switch off.
Pressure built behind my eyes.
“That was…” He searched for a word. “Well done.”
“I lied to my boss,” I said. “To my friend.”
“You protected us,” he said.
“I betrayed her,” I whispered.
He was quiet a moment.
“You gave yourself time,” he said. “Time to figure out how to…unbreak this. If that’s even possible.”
I laughed, a short, ugly sound. “Is that what this feels like to you? Unbroken?”
“No,” he said. “But it’s not shattered either. Not yet.”
I sank onto the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, head in my hands.
“I used to be so sure,” I said. “Of everything. Of what I was doing. Why I was doing it. The line between right and wrong. Science and superstition. Now I can’t even tell the truth on a radio without weighing it against…pack politics and magical treaties.”
“Welcome to my world,” he said quietly.
I looked up.
He’d moved closer without my noticing. Too close. His thigh brushed my knee, heat seeping through denim and fleece.
“You could have said yes,” he went on. “To the evac. To the helicopter. To leaving. I wouldn’t have stopped you.”
“Wouldn’t you?” I asked.
His jaw tightened. “Not…physically.”
“But you would have watched,” I said. “From the trees. From the shadows.”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Why,” I asked softly.
“Because you saw me,” he said. “And people who see me…have a way of dying.”
The words punched the air out of my lungs.
I thought of his scars. The stories he’d only half told. The pain in his voice when he spoke of halfway things, of minds shredded by magic.
“Who,” I asked, before I could stop myself. “Who else saw you.”
His gaze slid away. “Not today.”
“Kieran—”
“Not. Today,” he said, more sharply.
I bit back the instinctive retort.
He was allowed secrets.
We both were.
“Fine,” I said instead. “But you should know something.”
He looked back at me, wary.
“What,” he asked.
“I wasn’t tempted,” I said.
His brows drew down. “By…evac?”
“By leaving,” I said. “By…going back. To Bozeman. To my cabin. To…before. I…should have been. Every rational neuron in my brain was screaming at me to take the out. But…”
“But,” he prompted.
“But some part of me—the part that’s apparently running this show now—kept thinking about Cassian,” I said. “About your pups. About…this place. And I couldn’t stomach the idea of leaving you to clean up a mess I helped make.”
Emotion flashed in his eyes. Too quickly for me to parse.
“You didn’t make this mess,” he said. “I did.”
“Semantics,” I said. “We’re both standing in the broken glass now.”
His mouth curved, a small, reluctant almost-smile.
“Your metaphors are getting more dramatic,” he said.
“Concussion,” I said. “Makes me poetic.”
He huffed.
Silence settled between us.
Not comfortable. Not hostile. Something…charged.
I became acutely aware of everything.
Of the way he was standing, weight slightly shifted toward me, like his body leaned in even when his mind hadn’t decided yet.
Of the smell of him—smoke and pine and warm male skin, threaded with something sharper, wilder. The scent I was beginning to recognize as *wolf.*
Of my own heartbeat, thudding loud and fast in my ears.
He took a breath.
His chest brushed my knuckles where my hands rested on my knees.
Heat seared my skin.
He looked down at the point of contact.
So did I.
His skin was tan, scattered with a few dark hairs. My fingers were pale against him, knuckles grazed from a stumble the day before when Edda had tried to teach me how to run downhill without eating snow.
Without thinking, I turned my hand, letting my knuckles drag slowly along the curve of his ribcage.
He inhaled sharply.
“Sage,” he said, voice gone low.
I froze.
What the hell was I doing?
I should pull back. I should apologize. I should—
His hand lifted.
Hovered near my face.
He didn’t touch me.
“Don’t do that unless you…mean it,” he said hoarsely.
“Mean…what,” I whispered, throat dry.
“This,” he said.
His knuckles brushed my jaw, feather-light.
Every nerve ending in my body lit up.
“I don’t know what I mean,” I said. “That’s the problem.”
He made a low sound that might have been a curse. Or my name.
“Then figure it out,” he said. “Slowly. Carefully. Because if you touch me like that again, I’m not sure I’ll…stop.”
My pulse skyrocketed.
I should have been offended. Or scared. Or at least nervous.
Instead, heat pooled low in my belly.
“You’re assuming I want you to stop,” I heard myself say.
His eyes flared.
The air in the cabin thickened, like humidity before a storm.
He leaned in, very slightly.
His mouth was right there. A breath away. Warmth radiating from his skin, his scent wrapping around me like smoke.
I swayed toward him.
He closed the distance another fraction.
“Sage,” he murmured. “If I kiss you now, I won’t be able to pretend this is…just politics anymore.”
“It’s not politics now,” I said.
His lips twitched. “No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”
He was so close that when I exhaled, my breath stirred the stubble on his jaw.
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
Something wild and hungry flashed there.
He lifted his hand, fingers cupping the back of my neck, thumb resting at the pulse point under my ear.
I shivered.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
I opened my mouth.
The door banged open.
We jerked apart like guilty teenagers.
Rafe stood in the doorway, snowflakes melting on his hair, eyebrows halfway to his hairline.
“Well,” he said cheerfully. “I can come back later if you two need ‘privacy’ for your…treaty negotiations.”
Heat blasted into my cheeks.
Kieran’s expression slammed shut like a steel door.
“What is it,” he demanded.
“Nice to see you too,” Rafe muttered. “We’ve got a problem.”
I shot to my feet, heart still racing for entirely non-wolf-related reasons.
“Northridge?” I asked.
“Worse,” he said.
My stomach dropped. “What’s worse than a pack of homicidal shifters sniffing around?”
He held up a plastic rectangle between two fingers.
A trail camera.
My trail camera.
“You dropped this when we took you from the tower,” he said. “We just found it three miles south. Smashed. And not by us.”
The bottom fell out of my world.
“Someone else was there,” I whispered.
Rafe nodded grimly.
“Human,” he said. “And they have the memory card.”
***