Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
AVINE
“I’d like to see you.” His voice was rough, businesslike, giving way to something more honest. “Tide pools. Nine p.m. I could make up a reason if you need one.”
Her heart kicked against her ribs. She’d spent three days replaying their dinner at Vito’s. The way he’d looked at her across the candlelit table. The brush of his fingers against hers. The kiss on her porch.
“I don’t need a reason.” The words left her before she could stop them. “I’ll meet you there.”
The full moon hung low and heavy over the tide pools, painting the water in shades of silver and phosphorescent blue. Avine picked her way down the cliff path, the cool night air carrying salt and ozone—or the particular charge of magic saturating this place.
Theo waited at the bottom, silhouetted against the glowing water. He’d traded his usual business casual for jeans and a dark Henley that stretched across his shoulders in ways she was absolutely not cataloging.
“You came.” His voice carried an edge of surprise.
“You asked.” She stopped a few feet away, suddenly uncertain. “Though I have to admit, your excuse was paper-thin.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “It got you here.”
“Your tactical skills need work.”
“My tactical skills are fine.” He stepped closer, and the moonlight caught the sharp angles of his face, the intensity in those storm-gray eyes. “Maybe I didn’t want to try too hard.”
The air between them felt thick, charged with potential. Avine’s pulse stuttered.
He held out his hand. “Walk with me?”
She took it.
His palm was warm and solid against hers, the grip of someone who worked with his hands—hauling lumber for the inn’s repairs, wrestling kegs at the brewery, all the physical labor an alpha apparently couldn’t delegate.
His fingers laced through hers as naturally as breathing, like they’d done this a thousand times.
They walked along the water’s edge, waves lapping at rocks worn smooth by centuries of tides. The phosphorescence glowed brighter where the water moved, trails of light following each ripple. Above them, stars had emerged, impossibly bright without city lights to dim them.
“I used to come here as a kid,” Theo said. “When I needed to get away from pack politics. From my father.” His grip on her hand increased briefly. “The pools don’t care who your family is. They just… are.”
Avine glanced at his profile—the strong jaw, the way moonlight carved shadows beneath his cheekbones. “And now?”
“Now I come here when I need to remember what matters.”
She asked anyway. “What matters?”
He stopped walking, turning to face her. The moonlight silvered his features, made his eyes look like chips of ice with fire burning beneath.
“Right now?” His free hand rose, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingertips grazed her cheek, leaving trails of heat. “This.”
They settled on a flat rock overlooking the largest tide pool, the bioluminescence pulsing below like a living heartbeat. Theo shifted behind her, warm and solid, and guided her hands toward the water.
“Pack ward lines run under the pools,” he murmured. “Three hundred years of it. Don’t think. Feel.”
She reached past the sensation of his hands over hers and found it—a pulse, deep and slow and ancient, territorial and fierce and utterly unlike her own cultivated magic. And against every rule she’d been taught, it sang in harmony with her own. She knew what it was without asking.
A splash interrupted them.
Freezing water hit them both, drenching them from head to waist. Avine shrieked, jerking back. Theo let out a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.
A small figure burst from the tide pool between them—vaguely humanoid, composed entirely of glowing blue water and malicious glee. It cavorted on the rocks, leaving wet footprints that sparkled with bioluminescence.
“SMOOOOCH!” it shrieked, voice like wind chimes and breaking glass.
Avine stared at it, dress plastered to her body, salt water dripping from her hair. “What the—”
“Sea sprite.” Theo looked murderous, water streaming down his face. “They’re drawn to strong emotions. Think it’s hilarious.”
The sprite bounced up and down, leaving splashes of glowing water. “KISS KISS KISS! TELL EVERYONE! ALPHA AND WITCH! KISS KISS KISS!”
“I’m going to kill it,” Theo said flatly.
“Pretty sure they’re immortal.”
“I’ll find a way.”
The sprite cackled and did a backflip into the tide pool, sending another spray of water over them both before disappearing into the phosphorescent depths.
Silence fell. They stared at each other—soaked, freezing, romantic moment thoroughly destroyed.
Avine started to laugh.
It bubbled up from somewhere deep, unstoppable and ridiculous. She pressed a hand to her mouth, shoulders shaking. Theo’s scowl held for approximately three seconds before cracking.
“Every time,” he muttered, but his own laughter rumbled beneath the words.
He ran a hand through his dripping hair, sending water flying. “I’m genuinely sorry. I should have remembered the sprites are active during full moons.”
“Don’t be.” She wrung out the hem of her dress, still giggling. “It’s… actually kind of perfect.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Being doused in freezing water by a screaming supernatural creature is perfect?”
“It’s very Haven Shores.” She met his bemused gaze. “I came here for something different. I’d say this qualifies.”
His expression softened. “That’s one way to look at it.”
They walked back along the cliff path, hand in hand, dripping seawater and leaving glowing footprints from the bioluminescence clinging to their clothes.
The sprite’s interruption had shattered the intensity of their almost-kiss but replaced it with an easier intimacy—shared laughter, shared ridiculousness, the comfortable silence of two people who’d seen each other at less than their best and decided they didn’t mind.
At the inn’s porch, Avine turned to face him. Moonlight caught the water still glistening in his hair, on his eyelashes, on the strong column of his throat.
“Thank you.”
“For getting you soaked by a sea sprite?”
“For seeing me.” The words came out more vulnerable than she’d intended. “For not trying to make me smaller.”
Theo went still. His jaw worked, some emotion she couldn’t name flickering across his features.
Without a word, he lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her knuckles. The gesture was old-fashioned, deliberate, more devastating than any kiss on the mouth could have been. His lips were cool from the water, but the heat that spread through her had nothing to do with temperature.
“Goodnight, Avine.”
“Goodnight, Theo.”
She watched him disappear down the path, her hand still tingling where his mouth had touched.