Chapter 25 Theo
TWENTY-FIVE
THEO
Dawn came gray and reluctant, filtered through clouds Cassia still held at bay.
Theo had shifted back sometime in the early hours, pulled on his clothes, and resumed his place in the chair. His fingers found hers again, wrapping around her palm as if they belonged there. She was still breathing. Still here, even if she wasn’t awake.
He talked to her sometimes. When the room was quiet, when Narla’s eyes had drifted closed over her candles, when the sounds of the others had faded to distant background noise. He didn’t plan what he said. The words came on their own.
“Come back.” His voice was rough from disuse, barely above a whisper. “You come back to me, Avine.”
Her hand didn’t twitch. Her eyelids didn’t flutter. But he kept talking anyway, because silence was worse.
“I’m not done yet. We’re not done.” His fingers moved against her knuckles, tracing patterns he didn’t think about. “There’s—there’s so much I haven’t said. Things I should have told you. I was being careful. Responsible.” The word came out bitter. “I was being a coward, is what I was being.”
He lifted her hand, pressed his lips to her fingers the way he had on her porch the night before. Had it only been last night? It felt like a lifetime ago. A different world, one where she’d been awake and laughing and looking at him like maybe she wanted the same things he did.
“I need—” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard, forced the words out past the tightness in his throat. “I need you to wake up. Please. I’m not—I can’t—”
He couldn’t finish. Couldn’t find words for the hollow ache that had taken root in his bones, the gnawing fear that she might not come back, that the last real conversation they’d had might have been about tide pools and wanting and all the things they’d been too careful to say.
“Please,” he said again, and it was barely a sound at all.
“You look like hell.”
Theo didn’t turn from Avine’s bedside. “Beck.”
“I brought food.” His beta appeared in Theo’s peripheral vision, setting a plate on the nightstand. “Dahlia made it. She says if you don’t eat, she’s going to force-feed you with magic, and I’m pretty sure she means it.”
“Not hungry.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Beck dropped into a chair across the room, stretching his legs out in front of him.
He looked tired too—dark circles under his eyes, his usual easy smile nowhere in sight.
He’d been running the pack in Theo’s absence, handling the crisis, fielding questions. Being the beta Theo needed him to be.
Theo should thank him. Should ask how things were going, what needed his attention, whether the investigation had turned up anything. He couldn’t make the words come.
“The pack’s asking about you,” Beck said, as if reading his thoughts.
“Tell them I’m handling it.”
“Theo…”
“I can’t leave her.” The words came out hard. He forced himself to soften. “I know what that means. I know how it looks. I can’t.”
Beck was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler than Theo had ever heard it. “I wasn’t going to ask you to leave.”
Theo finally looked at him. Beck’s expression was uncharacteristically serious, his gaze moving from Theo to Avine and back again.
“She saved Dahlia,” Beck continued. “Threw herself in front of a construct without hesitation. Nearly killed herself doing it. The whole town’s talking about it.
” He paused. “The pack understands why you’re here, Theo.
They’re not asking because they’re upset.
They’re asking because they’re worried about you. ”
A knot loosened behind Theo’s ribs. A fraction. “Tell them I’m fine.”
“You’re not, but I’ll tell them anyway.” Beck stood, clapping a hand on Theo’s shoulder as he passed. “Eat the food. Dahlia’s terrifying when she’s determined.”
He left. Theo stared at the plate, then picked up the fork.
He ate because Beck was right. Because Dahlia was scary. Because he needed to be functional when Avine woke up.
When, not if. He refused to accept any other possibility.
Late on the second day, Avine’s fingers twitched.
Theo had been dozing—not truly sleeping, but drifting in that gray space between wakefulness and unconsciousness. He came alert instantly, straightening in the chair, his hand tightening around hers.
“Avine?”
Her eyelids fluttered. Once. Twice. Then opened, unfocused, blinking against the dim light of the room.
“Hey.” The word scraped out of him, wrecked. He cleared his throat. “Hey. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
She tried to speak, coughed, winced. He grabbed the water glass from the nightstand and helped her drink, supporting her head with his other hand.
Her hair was tangled, her face pale, her eyes still hazy with confusion.
Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her lashes, and her lips were chapped, colorless.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The relief that crashed through him nearly buckled his knees. Two days of fear, of bargaining with a universe that didn’t listen, of imagining every terrible outcome—and here she was. Awake. Looking at him. Alive.
“What…” Her voice was a rasp. She swallowed, tried again. “What happened?”
“You saved Dahlia. Destroyed all the constructs.” He set the water down and reclaimed her hand. Couldn’t help it. “Burned yourself out doing it.”
She processed that, her brow furrowing. Her gaze tracked around the room—the candles Narla had left burning, the evidence of the vigil he’d kept, the plates of half-eaten food. Finally, her attention came back to him.
To the exhaustion carved into his face. The stubble along his jaw. The rumpled clothes he hadn’t changed in two days.
“You stayed.” Not a question.
“Yes.”
“The whole time?”
“Yes.”
Her fingers curled around his, holding on with more strength than he’d expected. “That’s… a lot.”
“I know.”
She didn’t look away. Neither did he. An acknowledgment of what his presence meant, what it said about feelings neither of them had put into words passed between them.
He could have sent someone else. Could have checked in periodically, kept his distance, maintained the careful separation between alpha duties and personal wants.
He’d stayed. For two days. Because leaving her had never been an option.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Don’t thank me.” His thumb moved absently over her palm, the motion unconscious, soothing.
Theo met her gaze. Brown eyes, soft even in exhaustion, looking at him like he mattered. Like he was the one who’d done the remarkable thing, when all he’d done was sit beside her and pray to gods he didn’t believe in.
“Stay,” he said, barely audible. “Don’t—don’t do that again. Don’t leave.”
Her expression eased. “I’m not going anywhere.”
His exhale shook more than he wanted to admit. He brought her hand to his lips again, pressing a kiss to her knuckles that was as much gratitude as affection.
“You mean that?” he asked, and he meant it as a joke, a way to break the intensity of the moment.
But Avine didn’t smile. Her fingers gripped his harder. “I do.”
It wasn’t a declaration. It was bigger than that.