“Tomorrow,” I say, swallowing hard.
“Tomorrow.” She kisses me. Light. Quick. “But tonight—”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight I’m staying in this cot.”
“It’s going to break.”
“Then it breaks.”
She settles against me. My back against the wall, her back against my chest. My arm around her. My hand on her belly. Thebite on my neck throbbing in time with my pulse. The mark she gave me, the claim she made.
Her breathing slows. Her weight gets heavier against me. She’s falling asleep. In my arms. In the guest cabin at the edge of a compound that isn’t ours, on a cot that’s barely holding it together, with blood drying on both our necks. And with a bond that runs both ways. And a child growing between us.
“Briar.”
“Mm.”
“I love you.”
Silence. Long enough that I think she’s asleep.
“I know,” she murmurs. Then, quieter, half into sleep: “Me too.”
I close my eyes.
Chapter 37
Briar
I pack the way I always pack. Efficient. Fast. Everything I own fits in one bag, which tells you something about the way I’ve lived.
The knife goes in first. Then the spare clothes — three shirts, two pairs of jeans, the patrol leathers I’ve worn through two seasons of fieldwork. Boots by the door. The medical kit that’s been under my cot since I moved into this cabin. Toiletries in a canvas roll that Merric gave me for my birthday two years ago, which is the most personal item I own that doesn’t have a blade on it.
The cabin is bare when I’m done. Cot stripped. Shelf empty. The room looks the way it looked when I moved in. A temporary space for a wolf who never stayed anywhere long enough for the walls to learn her scent.
The last thing is the rabbit.
I take it from the nightstand and hold it. Button eyes, matted fur, the chewed ear. I carried this rabbit six hundred miles from a storage room in a Syndicate facility. I set it on the floor of a cabin in the Hill Country and made a man look at it while I cut his skin. I carried it back to Ravenclaw and kept it beside my bed for weeks. And every night, the button eyes stared at the ceiling and asked the same question.
Was it worth it?
I turn the rabbit over and smooth the chewed ear with my thumb. The child who owned this rabbit went through Garrett’s corridor. I don’t know the child’s name. I’ll never know. The intake system used numbers, and the numbers don’t trace back to people. The rabbit is the only evidence that the child existed as a person and not a data point.
I tuck it into the side pocket of my bag. Not for me. For later. For a decision I haven’t made yet about who gets to keep it.
I shoulder the bag and walk out.
The compound is awake. It’s early, but the word has gone around… people are gathering. Not for my departure. For Mia.
The clearing behind the lodge has been set up simply. No decorations, no formality. A circle of wolves standing on the grass in the morning light. Brenna at the center in her capacity as alpha. Merric beside her. Greta at the edge of the circle with her arms folded. Cameron, Sienna, Dane. The rescued family from the Forrester gate — the father standing straight now, his shoulder healed, his children between him and his wife.
Other Ravenclaw pack members form the rest of the circle. Some who were always here. Others who were rescued. Arden is near the back, Lachlan a step behind her, their hands not touching but close enough. Martin, who came because Brenna asked him to, standing apart with his wife.
Garrett is in the circle. Conner asked him to stand witness, and he’s standing. The Ravenclaw wolves have made room for himwith the caution of wolves who haven’t decided how much room to make but are making it anyway.
I take my place beside Willow. She looks at me. Looks at the bag I’ve set at the edge of the circle. Doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to.