Chapter 9 Avine
NINE
AVINE
The door crashed open. Theo appeared at the top of the stairs, a dark silhouette against the emergency lighting, and her pulse stuttered in a way that had nothing to do with fear.
He took in the scene in a single sweep—the flooding, the dying wards, her standing on a crate in soaked pajamas with her hair plastered to her face—and his jaw went tight.
“Report.”
“Ward obstruction.” She kept her voice steady. Professional. Not affected by the way he was already descending the stairs, moving through the water without hesitation. “Something’s disrupting the foundations. Foreign magic in the water. I’ve been trying to hold the stones, but—”
“But you need pack magic.” Beck appeared behind Theo, wearing sweatpants and an inside-out T-shirt, managing to look cheerful despite the circumstances. His gaze dropped to her feet. “Nice socks. Very intimidating.”
“They were fuzzy ten minutes ago.”
“Tragic loss.” He was already scanning the basement, noting exits, assessing structural integrity. The humor didn’t touch his focus. “Theo?”
Theo had reached the nearest ward stone, the one Avine had been fighting to protect. He placed his palm against it, and she watched his expression shift—concentration giving way to cold assessment.
“This magic doesn’t belong here.” His voice had dropped, rougher than human. “It’s disrupting everything it touches—old and incompatible. Whatever it is, it’s not friendly to the inn’s foundation.”
“Can you stop it?”
He looked at her then, across the flooded basement, and the air between them charged. Challenge and assessment and want she didn’t have words for.
“I can try.” He was already stripping off his shirt, tossing it onto the stairs. “But I’ll need you.”
Avine’s brain short-circuited.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen shirtless men before. She’d been married. She’d had a life. But Theo Vance—water already lapping at his waist, chest bare, muscles moving under skin as he waded toward the failing wards—made rational thought difficult.
“Your magic,” he clarified, and there might have been amusement in his voice. Bastard. “I need your magic to anchor the pack sigils. Witch and wolf working in tandem.”
“Right.” She climbed off the crate, refusing to acknowledge that her face was flushed despite the freezing water. “Yes. Magic. That’s what I was thinking about.”
Beck, bless him and also damn him, said nothing. His grin was loud enough.
Theo dove.
He disappeared beneath the surface, and Avine had a moment of pure panic—the water was dark, choked with magic, and he’d gone under like it was nothing—before she felt it.
His magic. Rising from below.
It was nothing like witch magic. Where hers flowed like water, his burned like banked fire—not aggressive, but present. Ancient. The kind of power that came from generations of pack running these shores, protecting this land, bleeding for it.
Pack sigils began to glow beneath the surface. She could see them through the murky water—golden lines spreading from where Theo worked, wrapping around the foundation, pushing back against the external threads.
“He needs an anchor.” Beck had moved to higher ground but was watching intently, all humor gone from his face. “The sigils will fade without stabilization. That’s you, witchy.”
Avine didn’t hesitate.
She fought her way to the central ward stone—the largest, the one that connected to all the others—and pressed both palms flat against it.
Come on. Take what you need.
Theo’s magic touched hers.
It was—
Oh.
She’d expected a collision. Fire meeting water, opposing forces clashing. What she got was more personal than anything she’d prepared for. His power didn’t fight hers—it recognized it. Wrapped around it. Invited it deeper.
For one breathless moment, she felt him. Not his magic alone, but the shape of the person wielding it. Determination like bedrock. Loneliness he’d learned to ignore. The fierce, protective instinct that drove him to dive into dark water for a woman he’d only started knowing.
And beneath that—a response to her. Recognition. Wanting.
Hello. His magic seemed to say, or maybe she was imagining it. There you are.
The ward stones flared. Every single one, blazing with combined light—turquoise and gold, sea and pack, witch and wolf—and the malicious magic screamed.
It fought back viciously. Avine felt the assault in her bones, pressure building, trying to tear apart what they’d woven. She gritted her teeth and held on. Beneath the water, she could feel Theo doing the same.
The foreign threads snapped.
One by one, the disruptive magic recoiled and dissolved, unable to hold against the combined force of their power. The water stopped rising. The groaning faded. The wards stabilized, humming with renewed strength—not her magic or his alone, but a weave of both.
Avine pulled back from the ward stone, gasping. Her arms felt hollow, wrung out. She’d given more than she knew she had, and the bill was coming due.
Theo broke the surface.
He came up gasping, water streaming from his hair and shoulders, and for a moment all Avine could do was stare.
His chest heaved with exertion. Pack sigils glowed faintly on his skin—temporary marks, fading even as she watched, but undeniably beautiful.
And his focus was entirely, intensely, on her.
“You held.” Wonder roughened his voice. Or maybe relief. “I wasn’t sure you could hold that long.”
“Neither was I.”
The exhaustion hit her all at once. Her legs buckled. Theo caught her arm before she went under, steadying her until she found the stairs.
Beck stood at the top of the stairs, a bag of chips in one hand—where had he gotten chips?—and an expression of pure, delighted mischief on his face.
“Chips?” He offered the bag. “I found them in your pantry. The stress baking section, I think.”
“I don’t have a stress baking section.”
“You have six different types of flour organized by protein content. That’s a stress baking section.”
An hour later, the sun was rising, and Avine was sitting in her own kitchen, wrapped in a blanket, watching Theo pace.
He’d found a spare shirt—likely from the truck—and she was trying not to be disappointed about that. More importantly, he’d spent the last sixty minutes cataloging the damage, checking the reinforced wards, and growing progressively more grim.
“Whatever that was, it wasn’t natural weathering.” He stopped by the window, arms crossed. “Something is attacking, and until we know what, the wards are vulnerable.”
“Or they wanted to flush me out.”
His head turned sharply. “What makes you say that?”
“Because they could have collapsed the whole thing if they wanted. The magic was strong enough.” She pulled the blanket tighter. “But they didn’t. They kept pressing until I had to call for help.”
His gaze sharpened. “Someone wanted to see what you’d do. How you’d react.”
“Or who I’d call.”
That landed differently. His jaw tightened, and she saw him processing the implications—that this might not be about her alone, that it might be about both of them, about whatever was humming in the air between them that neither of them wanted to name.
“I’m posting pack members outside.” His tone left no room for argument.
“Compromise.” The word looked like it cost him. “Weekly ward checks. I reinforce what we built tonight, make sure it holds. And you—” He hesitated. “You let me know if anything else happens. Immediately. Not when the water’s at your waist.”
“That’s it? No guards?”
“I’ll have patrols increase in this area. Discreetly. You won’t even notice.”
She studied him, looking for the catch. For the part where he’d take back the autonomy he was offering. But all she saw was a man trying very hard to protect someone who wouldn’t let him.
He’s not Henry. The thought surfaced unbidden. He’s not trying to control you. He’s trying to keep you safe, and he’s asking permission.
“Fine.” She eased her stance. “But the ward checks happen on a schedule I agree to. I’m not having you show up whenever you feel like it.”
A flicker at the corner of his mouth that might have been a smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“And you tell me everything you find out about what caused this. I’m not being kept in the dark about threats to my own home.”
“Agreed.”
The door closed softly. Beck and his grin and his commentary, finally gone.
Theo lingered. Words hovered behind his eyes, unspoken. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the way his gaze kept drifting back to her.
“Get some sleep.” He said it quietly, almost gently. “The wards will hold for now. And I—” He looked away. “I’ll be back to check on them.”
On them. Not on me. Even though we both know that’s what he means.
“Thank you.” The words felt strange in her mouth. Foreign. She wasn’t used to meaning them. “For coming.”
He nodded once. Started toward the door.
Then he stopped. Looked back.
A moment, but it was enough. In that glance was everything he wasn’t saying—the worry, the want, the growing impossibility of pretending this was about wards and pack duty.
Then he was gone.
Theo.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him. The way his hands had felt guiding hers. The catch in his breath when their magic touched. The heat of his body against her back.
She pressed her hand harder against the wall. The ward magic pulsed in response, steady and impossibly right.
She wasn’t terrified.
She wasn’t sure what she was. But terror wasn’t it.
She wondered if he was thinking about her too. If he was lying awake, replaying the same moments she couldn’t get out of her head.
Maybe he is.
Avine smiled despite herself.