7. Chapter 7 #2
“Maybe later.” A rougher edge in her voice than she intended.
“There you are.” Claire appeared with a bowl and a spoon. “We need a taste tester. Sage, you’re elected.”
“It’s tradition. Newest person at gathering tastes the stew and gives their honest opinion.” Claire pushed the bowl into her hands. “Go on.”
She lifted the spoon. Tasted.
The flavors hit her tongue. Rich elk, herbs she couldn’t name, vegetables cooked to perfect tenderness. It was the best stew she’d ever had, and the realization made her throat tight for reasons she didn’t want to examine.
“It’s good,” she managed. “Really good.”
Claire beamed. “Hear that? She says it’s good!”
Someone cheered. Someone else laughed. And Sage stood there holding a bowl of stew while wolves celebrated around her like she was one of them.
Like she belonged.
The thought frightened her more than any threat could have.
Maren found her at the edge of the gathering, the bowl of stew still in Sage’s hands. Stood beside her without speaking for a beat.
“It frightens you,” Maren said quietly. Not a question.
Sage’s grip tightened on the bowl.
“I held a tire iron at the long table for almost two weeks.” Maren’s voice stayed level. “Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep through the sound of a whole pack laughing on the other side of a wall.”
“How did it stop?”
“It didn’t, all at once. They just kept being who they were until I stopped expecting them to turn into something else.”
Freya appeared on Sage’s other side with two beers and a deadpan expression. “She’s going to tell you the trick is patience. The actual trick is the stew is unreasonably good and eventually you can’t leave a place that feeds you like this.” She handed Sage one of the beers. “Welcome to the pack.”
Sage huffed a quiet laugh, the first real one in a long time.
She found Declan later, standing at the compound’s edge while pack members mingled and ate and lived. He didn’t turn when she approached. He didn’t need to.
“You were right.” She kept her voice level. “I needed to see this.”
“Don’t mistake warmth for weakness.” His attention stayed on the tree line. “We keep what’s ours.”
“I don’t know what to do with it.” She stood beside him, close enough to feel his warmth. “They’re not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Monsters.” She didn’t soften it. “Killers who’d tear apart anyone who crossed them.”
“We are killers.” His weight shifted toward her. “We do tear apart threats. We’re not innocent, Sage. We’re exactly what you thought we were.”
“But you’re also this.” She gestured to the gathering. “Children and laughter and terrible stew that everyone pretends is amazing because Claire made it.”
“The stew is amazing.”
“It’s okay.” Her attention didn’t waver. “But they love her, so they lie.”
His expression shifted. “Yeah. They do.”
The air around them changed. She was aware of the space separating their bodies, the way his presence wrapped around her, the pull she’d been fighting since the moment he’d caught her in the woods.
“Maren said something.” Low, almost careful. “About a mate bond.”
He stopped breathing. “Sage—”
“Is it true?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. She saw the answer in the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes, in the tension bleeding through his composure, in the space he maintained like it cost him everything.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it doesn’t matter.” His voice was rough with the effort of keeping it even. “You’re here for answers about Mason. Not to deal with wolf biology.”
“It matters if it’s affecting your judgment.”
“My judgment is fine.”
“Is it?” She stepped closer. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re keeping someone close who came here to destroy you.”
“I’m keeping someone who deserves to know what actually happened to her brother.” He finally looked at her directly. “Even if that answer destroys me.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Sage stared at him. At this man who’d caught her and kept her and let her investigate him even though everything in him fought it.
This man who was her mate.
The bond she’d felt pulling at her since their first meeting suddenly made terrible sense.
The way she noticed everything about him.
The way his restraint affected her more than aggression ever could have.
The way standing next to him felt like coming home to something she’d never known she was missing.
She should back away. That was the smart move. Process this at a distance, the way she processed everything.
Instead she held her ground.
“If the bond says I’m yours, why aren’t you acting like it?” The question came out before she could stop it.
“Because you haven’t chosen me yet.”
Sage stared at him while heat rose in her chest, slow and unmistakable.
His shoulder almost touched hers. Close enough that she could feel his warmth even through the cold.
“You’re still here.” His voice dropped quiet. “That’s enough for tonight.”
A mate bond, they’d said. Like it was something that happened to a person and not something a person chose. But she was still here. Standing next to him when she didn’t have to be.
She stood with him and watched the fire and let the warmth of it settle into her bones. It was the first time she’d stayed.