Chapter 16 #2
He looked away toward the wildflowers. Toward the place where Claire’s ashes fed impossible color.
“It tried,” he said quietly. “Some days it still does.”
My chest ached like something was prying it open from the inside.
I squeezed his hand harder, needing the contact like oxygen.
“Then…” I swallowed. “Then don’t stand alone anymore.”
Daniel turned back to me.
And in that look—steady, heavy, certain—I felt something settle.
Not closure.
Not peace.
But choice.
“I’m here,” I said, because I needed him to hear it. Needed him to believe it. “Even when I’m a mess. Even when I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Daniel’s fingers laced through mine. “Good.”
The wind moved through the branches overhead, and the flowers swayed like the land itself was listening.
I smiled at him, and something in his expression cracked open. Something that had been locked away for fifteen years finally finding a key. “Daniel. I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Will you show me your wolf?”
His eyebrows rose. “What?”
“I've seen you shift. In battle, when everything was chaos and violence and survival. But I've never seen you—just you. The wolf without the Alpha. The animal without the war.” I squeezed his hand. “I want to see all of you. Every part.”
Daniel stared at me for a long moment. Something moved behind his eyes. Fear, maybe. Or wonder.
“You want to see me,” he said slowly. “The real me.”
“I want to see everything you've been hiding. Everything you've been scared to show anyone.” I held his gaze. “If you'll let me.”
The silence stretched. Then Daniel stood, pulling me up with him. He stepped back, creating space between us, and his hands went to the buttons of his flannel.
He stripped off the flannel. The t-shirt underneath. His boots, his jeans, until he stood naked in the afternoon light, and I saw every scar, every line, every mark that told the story of a man who'd spent his whole life fighting to protect others.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Always.”
The shift took him between one heartbeat and the next.
Bone cracked and reformed. Muscle tore and rebuilt. Skin erupted with fur that caught the filtered sunlight and turned it silver. And where Daniel had stood, a wolf now crouched.
I dropped to my knees in the wildflowers. Reached out my hand, palm up, like I was approaching something wild and uncertain.
“Hey,” I said softly. “There you are.”
The wolf stepped forward. Pressed his massive head into my palm.
The sensation was overwhelming. Warm fur, solid muscle, the thrum of a heartbeat that seemed to sync with mine. This was Daniel. Not the Alpha, not the leader, not the man carrying fifteen years of grief. Just the wolf. Raw and real and finally, finally letting himself be touched.
I ran my fingers through his fur. Behind his ears. Down the thick ruff of his neck. And Daniel leaned into every touch like he'd been starving for contact, like this simple act of being petted was the most profound thing anyone had ever done for him.
“You're beautiful,” I told him. “Ridiculous and terrifying and absolutely beautiful.”
His tail wagged.
I laughed, the sound startling in the quiet clearing. “Did you just wag your tail at me? The big scary Alpha?”
The wolf huffed. Breath warm against my leg. Then he dropped into a play bow, front legs stretched forward, rear end in the air, tail wagging so hard his whole body wiggled.
“Oh my goodness.” I was grinning now, couldn't help it. “You want to play?”
He barked. An actual bark, sharp and excited, like a dog seeing its favorite toy.
I looked around the clearing. Found a stick near the base of Claire's tree. Good throwing size, weathered but solid.
“You're kidding me.”
The tail wagged harder.
“Daniel Callahan. Head Alpha of the Evernight Pack. Terror of rival wolves and enemy witches.” I held up the stick. “Wants to play fetch.”
He lunged for it.
I barely got out of the way in time, laughing as he bounded past me, all predator grace applied to completely mundane play. I threw the stick as hard as I could, watched it arc through the filtered sunlight, and Daniel took off after it like his life depended on catching it.
He caught it mid-air. Six feet off the ground, easy, jaws snapping closed around weathered wood. Then he landed, shook it with theatrical violence to make sure it was properly dead, and came trotting back looking absurdly pleased with himself.
Dropped it at my feet. Sat. Waited.
“You're ridiculous,” I told him, still laughing. “Absolutely ridiculous.”
His tongue lolled out. Tail still going.
I threw it again. And again. And again. Watched him bound through Claire's wildflowers, scattering petals, moving with joy that had nothing to do with duty or leadership or grief. Just a wolf playing in the afternoon sun, finally letting himself be something other than strong.
On the fifth throw, he didn't bring it back. Just stood at the edge of the clearing, stick in mouth, eyes gleaming with mischief.
“Oh no. Don't you dare.”
He play-bowed again. The universal canine signal for “come and get it.”
“I'm not chasing you. I'm human. I have dignity.”
The tail wagged faster.
“Daniel.”
He took off running.
“Son of a bitch.” But I was laughing as I ran after him, crashing through wildflowers, tripping over roots, completely undignified as I chased a three-hundred-pound werewolf through sacred ground.
He let me catch him. I knew he did, knew he could have run circles around me for hours without breaking a sweat. But he slowed just enough, let me get close, and when I lunged for the stick he twisted and knocked me flat on my back.
Three hundred pounds of wolf standing over me, panting happy breath in my face, tail still wagging.
“You win,” I gasped, laughing too hard to breathe properly. “You're the most fearsome predator. I bow to your superior stick-catching abilities.”
He licked my face.
“Oh, that's disgusting!” I tried to push his massive head away, but he just licked me again, clearly delighted by my protests. “You're a grown man! This is undignified!”
Another lick, this one catching my mouth.
“I hate you. I hate you so much.”
But I was still laughing, and Daniel's tail was still wagging, and somewhere in Claire's wildflowers with the ancient oak watching over us, something shifted.
He shifted back eventually. Found me still lying in the flowers, staring up at the canopy, feeling more at peace than I had in months.
“I can't believe you actually chased me,” he said, settling beside me in the grass. Naked and unbothered by it. Grinning in a way I'd never seen before.
“I can't believe you actually play fetch.”
“Wolves like to play. We don't always get the chance.” He propped himself up on an elbow, looked down at me. “Thank you. For this. For asking to see me.”
“Thank you for showing me.” I reached up, traced the line of his jaw. Felt stubble and warmth and the impossible reality of this man I'd somehow fallen for. “Feel better?”
“Yeah.” He sounded surprised by his own admission. “I actually do.”
We sat there for a long time, surrounded by Claire's wildflowers, beneath the branches of a tree that had held fifteen years of sorrow and was finally, maybe, making room for something else.
The forest breathed around us. Patient. Watchful. Approving in ways that had nothing to do with words.
And when Daniel finally spoke again, his voice was lighter than I'd ever heard it.
“Come on. Let's go home.”
Home. Such a simple word. Such a complicated thing.
But walking out of that clearing with Daniel's hand in mine, I thought maybe I was starting to understand what it meant.