Chapter 2 Uncertainty Between Us #2
“It’s nothing.”
The lie tasted bitter. Curses never left ‘nothing’ in their wake, but she thought it was a normal bird, and I wasn’t going to correct her. Not until I figured out a way to explain without panicking her.
Brumous whined, nudging my bloodied arm with his nose. The gesture was so unexpected that I momentarily forgot my objections to his presence.
“Thank you.” Seri’s gaze lifted from my wound, her gray eyes liquid with an emotion far worse than fear. “I didn’t think… That is, I thought you wouldn’t…”
“Wouldn’t what?” The sharpness in my tone made her flinch. I modulated immediately, forcing my voice to be softer. “Wouldn’t protect you?”
“You’ve been so angry today.” Her fingers twisted together, a nervous tell I’d registered by day three with her. “I thought you were regretting…”
The implication slammed into me with hurricane force. All my meticulous plans, all my careful strategies, and I’d failed to cement the one truth that mattered.
“Z and I got the cleanup.” Ko materialized at my shoulder and hissed in my ear, “Fix. This.”
I nodded once. We needed to dispose of the hex components before they could mutate as well as examine the remains for clues about the sender, but none of that mattered if Seri believed I regretted our bond.
I steered her toward the koi pond without touching her. Not without permission, not with this uncertainty between us. Brumous trotted after us like a fuzzy mediator, his presence strangely comforting now rather than a threat.
“You believe that I would have allowed a threat to touch you?” My voice came out harder than I intended, and Brumous growled low in his throat. The irony wasn’t lost on me; the creature I’d been so certain would harm her was now protecting her from my own emotional inadequacy.
“No, it’s just…” She sat on the stone bench by the pond and bowed her head, staring at her tangled fingers. “You get so irritated and upset and… I know I’m not who you… Sometimes, I wonder if…” She curled in on herself as she blurted out, “Am I worth it, Casimir?”
The forest blurred around me. Nothing in my training had prepared me for this.
For my beloved’s belief that she ranked below safety concerns.
That I, in my panic, had made her feel less than worthy of me when I was the one who was unworthy of her.
Had I really been so cold, so focused on potential threats, that she doubted her place in my heart?
To look at her now, I was forced to admit that I had, and the realization was the hardest wake-up call I’d ever received. I’d been so determined to protect her from external dangers that I had become one myself, causing my beloved doubt and pain.
I dropped to my knees, earning a concerned yip from Brumous, and Seri’s head flew up, her eyes glossy with tears.
“Your injury! Are you—”
“Every allocation of resources, every threat assessment, every security protocol, it’s all…
” I swallowed hard, a lost wanderer in this terrain of emotional honesty.
“Proof.” The confession tore free, raw and inelegant.
“That you’re worth it. More than worth it.
You’re my life, Serafina. Not a duty. Not an obligation.
And I’m so sorry I made you feel anything less than the reason my heart beats—”
Her mouth met mine with all the sweetness of stolen honey, tentative and trembling.
Everything around me evaporated, even my awareness of the lightning in my blood battling the hawk’s curse.
Her fingers curled into my collar as if I might dissolve if she didn’t hold tight enough, and I cradled her jaw, marveling at the way her pulse fluttered against my palm.
This fragile, precious connection was what I’d been so desperate to protect, and what I’d nearly destroyed with my rigid approach to her safety.
Brumous whined, nudging our linked hands until Seri giggled against my mouth, a sunburst sound that rewrote all the cold equations in my bones. The dire wolf’s eyes met mine, intelligent and somehow knowing, as if to say, “See? We both want the same thing.”
As we broke apart, her lips curved into a dazed smile, and every knot in my neck unraveled. Next thing I knew, I was on the ground under a wolf intent on washing my face with his tongue.
Apparently, Brumous had decided that our kiss meant he, too, could initiate a similar physical contact with me. How absurd.
Seri’s giggles mixed with Ko’s chuckles and the rapid-fire click of Zane’s phone camera.
“Look at Cas’ face!” Zane crowed. “It’s like a gargoyle being licked by a puppy!”
I would have glared at him if Brumous’ exuberant tongue hadn’t had me dodging this way and that to avoid full nostril intrusion.
One hundred and thirty-one pounds of muscle and fur, I calculated automatically, and still underweight for his breed.
The numbers flowed through my mind, but this time, I didn’t feel the edge of anxiety that accompanied them.
Then his nose prodded my clenched jaw expectantly, and I gave in. Reaching up, I scratched behind his ear. The resulting thump of leg against earth sent ripples across the koi pond’s surface.
Seri knelt beside us as she checked my arm again, and her smile widened to see the gash already closed, dhampir healing working efficiently as usual. Never would I tell her how lightning ricocheted through my veins, fighting the curse. After she was asleep, Ko and Zane would help me neutralize it.
Then we’d deal with whoever had sent it.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“For?” I prompted, still struggling to interpret her emotional cues accurately.
“Accepting him.” Her fingertip smoothed the furrow between my brows, her touch feather-light. “Not making me choose between you and him.”
So Koa was right. She did fear I’d force that to happen. I’d been blind. And I needed to listen to my little brother more often.
“Smile, or I’m making this our holiday card,” Zane taunted, still snapping photos.
My reflexive scowl sent Seri into fresh peals of laughter, a sound I would protect with my last breath.
As I lay there rubbing Brumous’ notched ear, I noted three irrefutable facts:
Recovering dire wolf pups require precisely an hour of rest after playing.
Unpredictability isn’t so bad, if it’s properly planned for.
On very rare occasions, security has to take a backseat to trust.
Brumous laid on me, a weighted blanket of teeth and smelly fur. His heart rate synchronized with mine, steady and strong, and I found it oddly comforting. Like tactical gear, but warmer. Maybe tomorrow I’d weigh him again and begin a chart.
No. A spreadsheet.
After all, preparation wasn’t the enemy. Fear was. And for the first time since Seri had brought Brumous into our lives, the tight knot of panic in my chest began to dissolve. Not completely. I wasn’t capable of such abandonment, but enough to breathe.
Enough to trust.
#
Seri
Sprawled across the cool grass, I stretched my arms over my head and exhaled slowly. None of us seemed in any hurry to move, content to simply exist in the peaceful aftermath of what could have been something much worse.
Zane lay on his back behind me, one arm flung over his face to shield himself from the ‘fang-rotted sun, bane of redheads everywhere.’ Casimir sat cross-legged to my right, those long, elegant fingers of his absently toying with a blade of grass, and Koa stretched out on my other side.
Brummy had finally decided that Casimir would live and had lumbered off of him, collapsing into a furry heap nearby.
His tail twitched occasionally in his sleep, chasing dream rabbits.
Eighteen days free. Long enough for my calluses to have faded, but not nearly long enough to stop marveling at the luxury of relaxing my guard.
Days of stolen desserts before dinner and sheets that smelled like a midnight garden.
Of learning that Zane snored if he slept on his left side and Koa stashed cookies everywhere and Casimir never skipped dawn workouts.
Of course, I still had a lot to learn about my husbands, but there was one question in particular I’d been burning to ask for days now. Feeling the time was right to try, I shifted onto my elbow, studying each of them in turn.
“Can I…” I started, then hesitated. Was this weird? Probably. But after seeing a flash of Casimir’s earlier with the hawk, my curiosity had only grown. “Can I see your fangs?”
Three pairs of eyes swiveled to me with varying degrees of surprise.
“I mean, I’ve seen glimpses,” I clarified, heat creeping up my neck. “When you’re in predator mode or when instinct takes over. But never long enough to see them.”
Something about that part of them, the part that marked them as predators, fascinated me. And after today, after that moment of fear when the hawk had swooped down, I needed this. Needed them to see and know I wasn’t afraid of that side of them.
“You want the PG version or the funhouse mirror special?” Koa grinned, his eyes lighting with boyish excitement that made him seem younger.
Then his canines descended with a soft snick, lethal and gleaming and so casual it stole my breath. They gleamed in the light, longer and sharper than human teeth could ever be, with a slight curve that reminded me they weren’t for show. A hunter’s tools, designed for one real purpose.
“Want to test how sharp they are?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“Do not stick your fingers in his mouth,” Casimir warned. “Or anywhere near his fangs.”
I tilted my head, unable to resist the opening he’d just handed me.
“Oh? You’d rather I stick them in yours?”
The tips of his ears turned that delightful shade of pink that never failed to make my breath catch. It was unfair how adorable a battle-hardened monster hunter could be when flustered.
“Come on, Simmy,” I coaxed, turning my full attention to him. “Let me see yours, too.”