Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The stream hums ahead, patient and cold, threading its way through the valley.
The steps from the cabin are sagging with age.
Someone once walked them. Someone prayed here.
Someone hoped. Now they lead me to something that feels just as sacred.
I glance at my hand, bare ring finger catching the dimming light.
Soon, it won’t be empty. Not encircled with gold, but with something truer.
My dad stands beside me, straightening the cuffs of his blue jean jacket for the third time like it might just betray him if he doesn’t keep it in line. Kova presses quietly against my other side, solid and quiet, her shoulder comforting against my thigh.
“You ready kid?” my dad asks. I smile at that. Kid.
“Yes.” I can’t answer that I was born ready for this. Because I haven’t felt like I was allowed to have this. Now, I believe I do.
My dad nods, eyes fixed ahead. “You’ve carried more than anyone should,” he says. “I’m damn proud of the woman you became anyway despite it all.”
Kova huffs like she agrees.
I laugh, squeezing his arm.
Down by the stream, Billy clears his throat into the wind.
He’s wearing his Harley Davidson shirt like a badge of honor, a clip-on bow tie fighting for relevance at his collar.
It’s the most Billy thing I’ve ever seen.
The team settles into the old wooden pews Nyx and I grabbed from the church.
They sit facing the water like this was always where they belonged.
A moment later, Bear’s phone blares Enter Sandman by Metallica.
“Bear!”
“Oh, my word.”
“Absolutely not!”
He freezes, eyes wide as Ellie smacks him across the back of the head, yanking the speaker from his hands
“I thought it was perfect!” he exclaims.
The music cuts and Etta James instantly steals the show. Voices within the pews begin to sing along.
I laugh before I can stop myself. “Of course,” I murmur. “Of course this is how it starts.”
My dad offers his arm. “Wouldn’t be right otherwise.”
Before I can answer, the music cuts off again. Bear lowers his phone, brows knitting together. “Uhh… Florence?”
All the singing dies. My pulse stutters as heads begin turning toward the stream.
Torin stands alone on the opposite side of the bank.
He doesn’t move. The enormous charcoal wolf simply watches, his broad head lifted high and mighty, amber eyes drifting over every face gathered in the valley.
His ears flick once, weighing scents carrying on the mountain breeze.
“Mom?” Ellie whispers. Before I can answer, Nina is already crouching beside her and Todd.
She leans in close, whispering something into their ears that makes my children’s shoulders relax.
Without taking her eyes off of them, Nina lifts one hand behind her back and flashes me a perfect circle with her thumb and forefinger.
You’re okay.
I let out a relieved breath. Across the water, Torin finally lifts his nose, as if that’s what he’s been waiting for. The wind shifts, carrying every unsaid word between us. His gaze slowly drifts to Nyx at the altar.
Miss Onida appears behind me. “He knows,” she murmurs.
Torin’s ears ease forward. Then, with all the quiet authority of a king granting permission, he lowers his massive head. Only then does he turn back to the valley before disappearing into the pines.
Bear is the first to recover.
“…Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think that’s our cue.”
The music begins again as my dad laughs beside me.
We start down the steps gradually, the hem of my dress brushing the stone and the grass. The fabric moves with me like Miss Onida promised it would. The valley opens wider with every step, the stream catching sunlight, the air sharp and clean. And then I see him.
Nyx smiles. I know that look. His hands are loose at his sides, shoulders steady, eyes locked on me like nothing else exists.
When we reach him, my dad stops. Nyx steps forward, wrapping me into him without hesitation.
He presses his forehead briefly to mine, grounding me, before turning to my dad. They shake hands, firm and final.
“Take care of her, as much as she’ll let you,” my dad chokes out.
Nyx nods once, a grin appearing below his mustache. “Always.” He reaches down, running a hand along the thick fur of Kova’s neck. She sits, glued to my side, not a worry in the world of her muddy paws against the ivory.
And just like that, the woman who survived everything becomes the woman who gets to stay. By the stream. In the valley. With the man who never asked her to dim. At last.
Bear drags the long table into the center of the tavern as Nina clears the empty glasses around us, replacing them with new ones. Billy’s place hums low, laughter in corners, boots scraping against the rugged floor. Billy rolls up his sleeves beside us, still wearing that darn bow tie.
“You sure about this?” he asks, snapping on the latex gloves. “Last chance to go traditional. Gold bands. Engraving. Doves.”
Nyx snorts beside me.
“Do it,” I say to him, shoving our hands forward. “Before he offers fireworks.”
Billy grins. “You’ve always been my favorite.”
He lays out the stencil, two halves of the same broken bones, the break jagged and alive.
Like it’s angry. Nyx takes my hand first, his thumb brushing my knuckles once he sets my ring finger on the table.
The machine hums to life. It stings sharply, but it’s pleasant.
Billy works carefully, quiet now, tracing the upper half of the bone into my skin.
“I love it. It’s a lot more subtle than two shiny rings on Scott’s prized leads.” Nina peers over my shoulder, examining the tattoo.
I watch the ink bloom, dark and permanent, settling right where a ring would sit.
He wipes it clean, sucking his teeth as lifts my hand.
Nyx offers his next. The lower half of the bone takes shape beneath Billy’s careful lines.
The break mirrors mine perfectly, unfinished alone, whole when held together.
As Billy finishes, he leans back and peels off his gloves. “There,” he says.
Nyx laces his fingers through mine, the bones aligning.
Matt slides a drink across the table as Bear cheers. Cici wipes her eyes as she steps beside Billy, who’s also dabbing his own. “Must be the dogged smoke in here I swear,” he sniffles.
Nyx lifts my hand, pressing his mouth to the fresh ink like a vow he didn’t need words for. “I love you,” he murmurs.
I rest my forehead against his shoulder as he beams at our team. “I love you too. And Nyx?” He hums, his chin dipping down. “Thank God, for unanswered prayers.”
I look around the tavern, and spot Ellie and Todd sitting quietly in a booth with my dad and Rosemary playing the peg game beside them.
Ellie lifts her head, blowing me a kiss.
I catch it quickly, stashing it into my heart.
The rest of Greyline fans out, beginning a new game of pool and resuming their usual bets.
I smile to myself and lean into my husband.
The fire inside hasn’t gone out. I just don’t carry it alone anymore.