Chapter 12
TWELVE
AERO
The conversation fragmented after that. Beck ordered another round. Cal excused himself to check in with someone named Dahlia—his mate, apparently. The one who made the pastries Delos had already declared “supernaturally good.” The tension eased into something more casual, more ordinary.
Aero should have relaxed. This was progress. Integration. The kind of social foothold that would make his research easier.
Instead, he kept returning to thoughts of Cassia.
He was doing it again. Cataloging variables that weren’t variables. Analyzing a situation that had no data to offer, only certainty he refused to accept.
“You’re doing it again.”
Leo Castellan had moved closer while Aero was distracted, claiming the seat Cal had vacated. The lion studied him with an expression that was uncomfortably perceptive.
“Doing what?”
Leo tilted his head. “You look like you’re solving a problem that isn’t the weather.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“The storm witch.” Leo’s voice dropped, meant only for Aero. “Cassia Gale. I had that same expression six months ago when I was trying to convince myself Junie was just an interesting research subject.”
Aero’s spine stiffened. “Miss Gale is my research partner. Nothing more.”
“Uh-huh.” Leo’s smile was knowing in a way that made Aero want to shift and fly somewhere—anywhere—else. “I used to tell myself Junie was a ‘professional complication.’ Spent months analyzing my response to her. Made charts. Considered whether I might be ill.” The smile widened. “Sound familiar?”
Too familiar. Uncomfortably so.
“I don’t form attachments,” Aero said. The words felt rehearsed. Hollow.
“Neither did I. Neither did any of us.” Leo gestured around the table—at Theo, at Cal’s empty seat, at the other males who’d found their mates in Haven Shores.
“We all had our reasons. Our walls. Our carefully constructed arguments for why feeling things was a bad idea. And then we met the person who made all of it irrelevant.”
“My situation is different.”
“It’s exactly the same. You’ve just had longer to build your walls.
” Leo’s expression softened, losing some of its teasing edge.
“Look. I’m not going to tell you what to do.
But I spent most of my life believing that control was strength and vulnerability was weakness.
Turns out I was wrong. Turns out letting someone in doesn’t make you weak—it gives you something worth fighting for. ”
Before Aero could respond, Cal dropped back into the booth, his phone still in hand. “Dahlia says hi. Also says to remind the dragon that the bakery opens at six if he wants to try the croissants.”
“She’s recruiting customers through her mate now?” Leo raised an eyebrow.
“She’s being friendly.” Cal’s tone was mild, but his eyes found Aero’s. “Dahlia also mentioned that Cassia came by this morning. Seemed distracted. Kept looking toward the harbor like she was waiting for something.”
“Or someone,” Leo added helpfully.
Aero’s dragon preened at the implication. He told it to shut up.
“I crashed in Dahlia’s storeroom as a bear before I admitted anything,” Cal said.
His voice had the careful quality of a man who still found the memory slightly embarrassing.
“Full shift. Couldn’t control it. My beast was so desperate to get close to her that it took over.
I spent three hours curled up next to the flour bins because her scent was in the walls.
” He paused. “She found me at two in the morning, still in bear form, covered in semolina dust. I’d knocked over an entire shelf. ”
Beck pressed his knuckles to his mouth. “Semolina dust.”
“Everywhere.” Cal’s expression was dry. “In my fur. On the ceiling somehow. Dahlia’s cleaning bill was significant.
” His gaze shifted to Beck, steady and certain.
“Denial is a powerful force. But here’s what I know: the worst moment of that whole situation wasn’t the dust or the embarrassment.
It was realizing I’d wasted months pretending I didn’t want something I already had. ”
Beck went very still.
“What are you going to do?” Delos asked.
“What can I do?” Beck’s laugh was hollow. “Tell her to stay? Give up her career for a wolf beta she’s known for six weeks? That’s not—” He shook his head. “I won’t do that to her. Even if she’d let me.”
“Does she know how you feel?”
“She knows I want her.” Beck’s voice dropped. “She knows my wolf loses its mind when she’s around. But wanting someone isn’t the same as—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I’m still figuring out the rest.”
Aero recognized the struggle. The careful dance between wanting and having. Between risking and protecting. He’d spent centuries perfecting his own version of it.
But watching Beck’s face—the hope and fear and desperate uncertainty written there—he wondered for the first time if protection was really what he’d been doing. Or if it had just been a more comfortable word for cowardice.
“Fighting for someone you love isn’t weakness,” Cal said.
His voice was rough. Certain. “I spent years convinced I didn’t deserve anything good.
That I was too broken to have a mate, a family, a life.
Dahlia taught me differently.” His dark eyes met Beck’s.
“Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let yourself want something.”
The words settled into the air and stayed there.
We want her, his dragon said. Stop running.
I’m not running.
You’ve been running for centuries, the dragon countered. Maybe it’s time to stop.
The walk back to the cabin was cold and dark and far too quiet.
Delos had stayed at the brewery, thoroughly adopted by Beck and the other males, no doubt gathering intelligence that he’d use to torment Aero for weeks.
That was fine. Delos deserved friends. Deserved the easy camaraderie that came naturally to fire dragons and seemed genetically impossible for storm ones.
Aero walked the forest path alone, his breath misting in the night air, his mind churning with unwelcome thoughts.
The weather manipulation. The anomalous data. The growing certainty that something—or someone—was deliberately targeting Haven Shores.
And beneath all of that, threaded through every calculation and analysis, was Cassia.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the storms that gathered when she was emotional—fierce and beautiful and utterly uncontrolled. About her sharp tongue and sharper wit and the vulnerability she hid beneath layers of drama.
She was chaos incarnate. And his dragon wanted her with an intensity that terrified him.
He reached the cabin and stood on the porch, staring up at the sky. Clouds were gathering on the horizon. Storm clouds, building from the west. Natural or magical, he couldn’t tell from here.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
He pulled it out. A message from an unknown number. One line of text:
The equipment at the harbor anchor is showing anomalies. Thought you’d want to know. —C
Cassia. Reaching out. Offering professional information at eleven at night because she knew he’d care about data more than sleep.
She was right. He did care.
But as he typed his response—neutral, professional, requesting details about the anomaly readings—he couldn’t stop thinking about what Leo had said.
Letting someone in doesn’t make you weak. It gives you something worth fighting for.
The question was whether he was brave enough to try.
The storm clouds continued to build. By morning, they would cover the sky.
Aero went inside, closed the door behind him, and began reviewing the harbor anchor data Cassia had sent.
But his mind kept drifting to dark curls and sea-colored eyes. To the electric charge between them that no amount of analysis could explain.
To the alarming, exhilarating possibility that maybe—just maybe—he was done running.
His dragon purred approval.
Outside, the first rumble of thunder echoed across the harbor.
Somewhere in town, Cassia Gale was awake. He knew it the way he knew the angle of the wind.
And for the first time in centuries, the knowledge didn’t make him want to flee.
It made him want to stay.