“Hey.” It’s Briar’s voice. Behind me. Close.
Her hand lands on my shoulder. Not gentle. The firm press of a woman telling me to keep it together without wasting words on it. Her fingers press in once, then release.
I turn my head.
“You did good,” she says.
I open my mouth to respond, but she’s already moving away, her back to me, heading for the hallway. And as she rounds the corner, her hand brushes her stomach. Quick. Unconscious. The gesture of a woman touching something she’s protecting without knowing she’s doing it.
My wolf goes still.
Not pacing. Not restless. The absolute stillness of an animal that has just recognized something it should have recognized weeks ago.
Her hand on her stomach. The scent shift. The warmth I couldn’t name in the storage room. The density in the way she’s been carrying herself. Her wolf’s protective focus that I’ve been feeling for weeks, without understanding what she was protecting.
The ball is warm in my hand. Mia’s grip is a ghost on my finger. And the woman who just walked away from me is carrying something that changes everything. She didn’t tell me, but my wolf knows, and the knowing is—
“Garrett.” It’s Conner. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” My voice doesn’t sound like my voice. “Yeah, I’m… Yeah.”
He looks at me, then looks at the hallway where Briar disappeared. Looks at the ball in my hand. Something moves behind his eyes — the brother putting the pieces together and arriving at a conclusion that he’s not sure how to process.
Who could blame him? I’m not sure how to process it either.
“Get some rest,” he says. “I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”
“Conner.”
“Yeah?”
“The ball. Should I give it back?”
He looks at Mia, who’s drowsing against his neck. “She gave it to you. She’d be upset if you tried to return it.”
I close my fingers around the ball. Small. Red. Warm.
“Okay.”
He walks me to a cabin at the edge of the compound. It’s basic. A cot, a blanket, a basin. Nothing personal. Guest quarters for a man who is not a guest and not quite a prisoner and not quite anything anyone here has a category for.
“There’s water in the basin. The shower block is thirty yards north.” He pauses in the doorway. “Garrett.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Me too.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”
“I know.”
“If it’s any consolation, I haven’t forgiven myself either.”
I nod once.
He closes the door.