Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
MILO
Calder said he loved me.
For a second, nothing else existed.
Not the forest. Not the hunters. Definitely not the thing still moving somewhere out there beyond the trees. Not the danger he kept trying to put between us like distance could somehow save me from loving him.
Calder loved me.
The words traveled through me slowly at first, like my body needed time to understand what my heart had already caught.
Then I was moving.
I didn’t remember deciding to cross the space between us. One second he was standing there, all control and fear and ancient grief, telling me I had to go, and the next I was close enough to feel the heat of him again.
Close enough to touch him.
Close enough to make sure he couldn’t turn love into goodbye before I had a chance to answer it.
For a second, I could only look at him; at the fear still sitting beneath the confession, the way he stood there like loving me and losing me had already become the same thing in his head.
Too late.
I reached for him, pressing my hand flat against his chest, over the place where I knew his heartbeat lived beneath fur and muscle and impossible strength. I had felt it there when I thought I was going to lose him. I had counted it beneath my palm like that could keep him with me.
“You don’t get to say something like that and then follow it up with ‘You have to go.’”
His voice came out low, controlled. “I am trying to keep you alive.”
“I know.”
And I did.
That was the worst part.
I heard the fear beneath the command, the grief beneath the distance. I heard the story he had just given me, the woman who had seen enough of him to leave him with a stone and a wound time had never touched.
“You lost her,” I whispered.
His body went still beneath my hand.
“You weren’t there when she needed you,” I continued. “And now you think if I stay, this ends the same way.”
“It will.”
“No.”
His gaze sharpened. “You do not know that.”
“Neither do you.” My hand pressed more firmly against him, not to hold him in place, but to anchor myself while I said what needed saying.
“I’m not her, Calder. I’m not living somewhere you can only watch from the edge of the trees.
I know what you are. I know what’s out here.
I saw it.” I swallowed past the tightness in my throat. “And I am still choosing you.”
His breath moved under my palm, slower now, like he was forcing himself to remain still through the impact of it. “That does not change the risk.”
“No, but it changes who gets to make the choice.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“You said you love me,” I said, softer now because this mattered too much to turn into anger. “You don’t get to use that love to decide my life for me.”
“I will not watch you die.”
The words were quiet, terrible, and honest in a way that hurt.
I moved my hand higher, from his chest to his shoulder, then to the side of his neck, my fingers brushing the cord there before settling against him again. “You don’t get to decide that’s what happens.”
“It will happen one day.”
“Then one day, we’ll face that together.” My voice shook, but I didn’t step back. “But not by wasting the time we have now. Not by sending me away while we’re both standing here loving each other.”
The last words left me before I could dress them up.
“Loving each other.”
Calder stared at me.
The forest sang softly around us, leaves whispering overhead, the night alive but between us, everything narrowed down to his face, his breath, the place where my hand rested against him.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said. “Not because I don’t understand the danger. Because I do. And I’m still here.”
For a long moment, he didn’t speak.
Then his hand lifted.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like he was still giving himself one last chance to stop.
He didn’t.
His fingers closed around my wrist where my hand rested against his neck, firm and warm, holding me there like he needed proof I was real.
“My heart,” he husked.
The words were not careful this time.
They were not guarded.
They simply… were.
And God, that broke me in a place I hadn’t even known I was still holding back.
I moved before thought could get in the way, closing the sliver of space between us. My other hand cupped his cheek, pulling his mouth down to mine.
There was nothing tentative in it now.
No question.
No almost.
He kissed me like the words had finally torn through every wall he had built around himself. Like love had frightened him, yes, but losing this—losing me—would frighten him more.
His hand slid from my wrist to my back, drawing me closer with a force that should have overwhelmed me, but I only melted into the embrace. I went willingly, fingers sinking into his fur, my body pressed against the impossible heat of his.
I had kissed him before.
I had touched him before, but this was different.
This was Calder loving me with his mouth, with his hands, with every careful restraint finally giving way just enough for me to feel how much he had been holding back.
I pulled away only because breathing became necessary. My forehead rested against his, my hands still buried in him. “Say it again,” I murmured.
His breath caught. For one second, I thought he might retreat into silence. Then his hand curved more firmly around my back. “I love you,” he said.
The words hit softer this time.
Deeper, like they had found their place inside me and intended to stay.
I smiled against his lips, barely enough for him to feel it.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “That’s what I thought.”
He made a low sound, almost my name, almost something else, and I claimed his mouth again before either of us could ruin the moment by thinking too much.
Calder kissed like every touch mattered enough to learn properly. Like my mouth was something sacred and surprising, even now. Like he could never quite believe I kept choosing to be there.
That only made it worse.
Better.
Everything.
I broke the kiss again, breathless now, my hands sliding to either side of his face. “I love you too,” I panted.
He went completely still, but didn’t move away, instead curling into me.
Like the words had entered him and his entire body needed a second to understand them.
“You—” His voice stopped.
I almost laughed, but it came out too soft, too close to aching. “Me. Yes.”
His eyes searched mine with a kind of stunned intensity that made my throat tighten.
“I didn’t plan it,” I admitted. “I didn’t come here looking for this. I spent years making sure I never ended up needing anyone this much.”
His fingers flexed against my back.
“But it didn’t matter.” I slid my thumb along the edge of his jaw, feeling the hard ridge of it beneath my fingertip. “I fell in love with you anyway.”
Calder’s eyes closed for half a second. When they opened again, something in him looked undone. “My heart,” he said again.
A choked noise burst out of my mouth, half a laugh, half a sob, but full of too much emotion trying to fit into one human body.
I kissed him again because there was nothing else in the world I wanted to do. Because he was there. Because he loved me, and I loved him. Because somehow, after everything the world had thrown at us—everything terrifying and strange and impossible—it had still brought me here.
His arms surrounded me so completely that there wasn’t space for doubt between us.
He held me like he had finally accepted that I was staying, and I held him right back.
The hunters were still out there, so was that unknown creature. The danger had not vanished because we had said the words.
But for that one moment, none of it was bigger than us, or bigger than Calder’s mouth on mine, or than his hands at my back, or than the sound of his breathing when I whispered his name against him.
“You don’t get to push me away after this,” I said, voice low and unsteady.
His forehead rested against mine. “I may not be able to stop everything.”
“I know.”
“I may not always reach you in time.”
“I know,” I repeated, holding him tighter. “But I’m still here. And I’m staying.”
His hand slid into my hair, careful and possessive in a way that made my breath catch. I could feel him trembling faintly now, though whether from fear or relief or the force of everything between us, I didn’t know.
Maybe all of it.
“Calder,” I whispered.
There was so much tangled up inside me that I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say.
He didn’t answer with words.