Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
BOONE
I don’t remember the last time I felt like this.
That’s the truth of it. Not happy in the abstract sense—content, or satisfied, or relieved—but this specific warmth that sits behind my ribs and refuses to be dislodged. A happiness that isn’t loud or fleeting. It doesn’t spike and crash. It persists.
It hums.
It is Elias.
The last few days have unfolded with an ease that feels almost suspicious.
We walk and talk, sometimes for hours, sometimes in companionable silence.
He asks questions while I work—about the nodes, the runes, the way the land feels to me rather than how it looks.
He listens when I answer—really listens, like every word matters.
When he gets excited, he gestures with his hands, animated and bright, and I pretend not to watch the way his face lights up because if I look too long, I forget what I’m doing.
We hold hands without thinking about it. It just… happens. Fingers finding fingers, palms warm and familiar. Sometimes I catch myself adjusting my pace so he doesn’t have to hurry. Sometimes he does the same for me and speeds up, even though I never ask.
At night, the quiet is anything but.
The nights are hot and heavy and full of desire and want, of mouths and hands and the low, unguarded sounds Elias makes when he forgets himself. I have never wanted another being the way I want him. I have never been wanted like this either—openly, enthusiastically, without fear.
Every moment feels like a gift I’m afraid to name too loudly.
And yet.
Since we met Bob and Christopher, something has shifted.
Elias is still affectionate. Still curious.
Still warm. But there’s a restraint now, subtle enough that I might have missed it if I didn’t know him as I do.
A hesitation before certain questions. A thought he starts to voice and then reroutes.
His mind is busy—always busy—but now it circles particular paths more often, returning to the same points like a tongue worrying at a loose tooth.
Time. Choice. Possibility.
I don’t blame him.
Seeing Christopher—really seeing him—would have done that to anyone with a thinking brain. A human who has lived nearly a century and still laughs like time has not claimed him. A human who chose and was chosen in return.
Elias’s mind is built to interrogate the world. To ask how and why until answers appear. But there are some things—some truths—that do not submit easily to dissection.
Like mates.
The word sits heavy in my thoughts, one I’ve been carefully avoiding even as my instincts circle it like a starved thing.
Mates, for my kind, are not about fate. There’s no thunderclap, no binding spell, no moment where the universe declares this one and no other. We are not limited in love, nor bound by it in that way.
But when it happens—when a mate is chosen—it feels… inevitable anyway.
Compatibility, first. Scent that calls to instincts older than memory. Touch that soothes as much as it ignites. A shared rhythm, a sense that the other being fits into your life, your territory, your long view of time. It’s not exclusive in theory.
In practice? It almost always is.
Because once you find someone who calms your storms and stirs your heat in equal measure, why would you ever look elsewhere?
There’s no ritual. No ceremony. No magic words spoken over blood or fire.
Just choice.
Again and again.
Everything in me—everything—screams that Elias would make the perfect mate.
Not despite his humanity but because of it.
His questions. His warmth. His stubborn compassion. The way his presence settles my instincts instead of provoking them. The way his scent wraps around me like it’s meant to be there.
The problem is not whether I feel this. The problem is whether Elias would want it.
Whether he would hear the word mate and think trap. Or obligation. Or too much, too soon. Whether he would look at the shape of a life bound not by magic but by choice and recoil from its weight.
And then there’s the other truth, the one that makes my chest tighten every time I think it too clearly.
Yes, it is possible to extend his life if we stay together.
Possible—not guaranteed, not automatic. Gaining is a slow thing. It happens over years, not weeks. It’s as much about proximity and consent as it is about magic or biology. But the possibility exists.
I have no idea how Elias would react to that. A scientist, faced with the chance to change how time treats him. A man, faced with a future that stretches further than he ever planned.
I don’t know whether that would feel like a gift… or a burden.
So I say nothing.
For now.
We’re walking when the land changes. I feel it before I see it, a subtle shift that crawls up my spine and settles there like a warning. The air grows too still. The birds quiet, not suddenly, but one by one until the silence presses in.
My pace slows without conscious thought.
Elias notices immediately. “Boone?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Stay close,” I say, low and firm.
That gets his attention. He moves closer to my side, his hand brushing mine, ready to lace our fingers together. I don’t take it this time. Not because I don’t want to, but because my focus has narrowed to the threat ahead.
This territory is… contested.
I can’t tell yet by whom, only that the land feels tense, stretched thin like a wire pulled too tight. My instincts prickle, every sense sharpening as I scan our surroundings. There’s movement at the edge of my awareness—too quiet, too deliberate.
Elias follows my gaze, confusion flickering across his face, then unease.
“Boone,” he says again, softer now. “What is it?”
“We may need to move quickly,” I reply. “If I tell you to run, you run. Do not argue.”
His eyes widen. “Okay….”
I place a hand on his shoulder, grounding him, and lean in just enough that my voice is for him alone. “Listen to me,” I say. “No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, you stay behind me.”
He nods, jaw tight, fear beginning to bleed through his calm.
There’s movement in the brush ahead of us.
My muscles coil.
Whatever happiness we’ve been living in these last few days—whatever softness I have allowed myself—it doesn’t vanish. It sharpens. And whatever is out there is about to learn exactly how much I have to lose.
The land exhales wrong.
Not the steady breath of forest and stone, not the layered life of insects and roots and moving water. It’s sharper than that—a pressure that rolls outward, deliberate and testing, like a predator stepping just close enough to see if it’s been noticed.
I notice.
I stop fully now, one arm coming out instinctively to bar Elias from moving past my shoulder. He freezes, breath hitching, every nerve in his body suddenly aware that this is not a drill.
“Behind me,” I say again, quieter but harder.
He obeys without question. I feel him at my back, close enough that his warmth presses into me, that I can smell the spike of fear beneath his familiar scent. Fury curls in my gut.
The brush ahead parts.
Whatever steps into the clearing doesn’t belong here.
It moves wrong—too upright, too fluid in a way that makes my skin crawl. Its shape is humanoid but stretched, warped, like someone took the idea of a body and pulled it too far. Its eyes catch the light in a way that is not reflective, but hungry.
It’s sensed Elias.
The thing’s head tilts, attention snapping to the human shape behind me, and its focus sharpens. A sound escapes its throat—low, scraping, evaluative.
I bare my teeth. “Leave,” I growl.
My voice rolls across the clearing like thunder, layered with command, with ownership, with no. I step forward deliberately, widening my stance, making my size and mass impossible to ignore.
The creature hesitates.
Good.
I feel Elias’s hand clutch at me, his fingers curling tight, and the fear spikes again—hot, electric. My instincts surge in response, every protective reflex screaming.
The thing takes one more step.
That is the mistake.
I move.
Not fast or frantic, but with a controlled violence that feels as natural as breathing. I slam my foot into the ground, the impact sending a tremor through the soil, and roar. The sound tears out of my chest, ancient and absolute, carrying with it a promise of pain and consequence.
The creature recoils, startled by the force of it, but it doesn’t flee.
It should.
I advance, shoulders rolling, claws flexing at my sides as I shed the last of my restraint. This is not a warning anymore. This is a declaration.
Mine.
The creature lashes out, a sudden swipe meant to test my reach. I catch it mid-motion, grip closing like iron, and twist. It shrieks—high and furious—scrambling backward as I shove it away with enough force to send it crashing into the brush.
I don’t pursue. I don’t need to. I plant myself squarely between it and Elias, chest heaving, eyes locked on the shadows where it retreated. I release another growl, lower this time, saturated with threat.
“Go,” I snarl. “Now.”
There’s a long, tense pause.
Then the pressure breaks.
The forest exhales again—right this time. Birds stir. Leaves rustle. The sense of being watched recedes, like a tide pulling back from shore.
Only then do I turn.
Elias is white-faced, eyes wide, breath coming in short, sharp pulls. He’s staring at me like he’s seeing something entirely new—and yet not afraid of me.
“Boone,” he whispers.
I’m on him in two strides, hands gripping his shoulders, scanning him from head to toe for injury, for blood, for anything out of place, despite knowing he was safely tucked behind me the whole time.
“Are you hurt?” I demand.
He shakes his head quickly. “No. I—I—I’m okay.”
His hands come up, clutching at my arms, grounding himself against me. I can feel his heart racing through the thin barrier of fabric, feel the tremor running through him.
Safe.
The relief hits me like a blow, followed immediately by a surge of fury so intense, it makes my vision edge red.