Chapter 10 Harkan #2
The leather cover was warm from being pressed against my chest. A few of the pages were singed at the edges, but the book was whole. Intact. Filled with her mother's handwriting and pressed flowers and notes in margins that chronicled a lifetime of love.
Sable lifted it out with both hands, cradling it like something infinitely precious. For a long moment, she just held it, staring at the cover, her whole body trembling.
Then she pressed it to her chest and curled around it, and the sound that escaped her wasn't quite a sob. It was something rawer than that, something that came from a place deeper than tears. Relief and grief and gratitude all tangled together, too big for her body to contain.
She has it, the wolf breathed. We saved it. We saved her mother's words.
Rhett caught my eye and nodded toward the door. He slipped out without a word, closing it quietly behind him.
I stayed where I was, crouched beside the bed, watching her cry.
I wanted to touch her. Wanted to pull her into my arms and hold her until the shaking stopped. But something told me this moment wasn't for me—this was between Sable and her mother, between mourning and mercy, between the past she'd thought she'd lost and the pieces she'd managed to keep.
So I waited.
The minutes stretched. The shaking gradually eased. Her breathing steadied, deepened, became something closer to normal.
Eventually, she lifted her head.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face streaked with tears and soot, but there was something in her expression that hadn't been there before. Something that looked almost like wonder.
"You saved it," she whispered. "In the middle of an explosion. While the building was coming down around us. You grabbed my bag."
"I grabbed you first. The bag was... a reflex."
"Reflex." She laughed, the sound wet and broken but real. "You reflexively saved everything I have left of my mother. Everything I have left in the world."
I didn't know what to say to that. The wolf was pacing beneath my skin, desperate to close the distance between us, to hold her, to never let her go.
"How did you even—" She stopped, shook her head. "You were carrying me. You should have had your hands full. How did you—"
"I don't know." It was the truth. The moments after the blast were a blur of heat and instinct and the singular, desperate need to keep her safe. "I saw the bag on the ground and I grabbed it. I didn't think."
"You didn't think," she repeated softly. "You just... saved her."
The way she said it made something ache in my chest. Like I'd done something far more significant than snatching a leather bag from the cobblestones.
And then she moved.
It happened so fast I didn't have time to prepare. One moment she was sitting on the bed, clutching the grimoire to her chest. The next, she was leaning forward, her hand finding my jaw, her lips pressing against mine.
The kiss was soft. Tentative. Tasting of tears and ash and something sweeter beneath—gratitude, maybe, or the first fragile stirring of trust.
The wolf went absolutely still.
Mate, he breathed. Our mate is kissing us. Our mate is—
I didn't move. Didn't breathe. Didn't do anything that might break the spell, that might remind her of all the reasons she shouldn't be doing this, shouldn't be trusting me, shouldn't be letting me anywhere near her heart.
The kiss lasted only a moment. Then she pulled back, her cheeks flushed, her eyes uncertain.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "For saving her. For saving... everything."
I should have said something. Should have told her it was nothing, that I would have done far more, that I would burn down the entire Divide to keep her safe.
Instead, I just nodded, not trusting my voice.
She settled back on the bed, the grimoire still pressed against her chest, and I forced myself to breathe. To think. To be something other than a man who'd just been kissed by the woman he'd been trying not to fall for since the moment he met her.
"The man in my vision," she said, her voice hoarse but steady. "The one who set the trap. I couldn't see his face—it was scratched out, somehow. Like a ruined photograph. But he knew me. Knew my mother's shop. Knew exactly how to hurt me."
I latched onto the change of subject like a lifeline. "Someone from your past."
"Has to be. But who?" She shook her head slowly. "Varro has plenty of people who could build something like that. But this felt different. Personal. He wasn't just following orders. He enjoyed it."
The wolf growled, low and vicious. Find him. Hunt him. Tear him apart.
"What else did you see?" I asked. "Anything that might help us identify him?"
She closed her eyes, concentrating. "His hands were scarred. Old scars, like he'd worked with fire before. And his voice..." She shuddered. "He said I should have burned years ago."
Years ago. Not recently. Not since she'd fled Varro's control.
This was older. Deeper. Something rooted in her past, waiting all this time to emerge.
"We'll find him," I said, and the promise carried the weight of blood. "Whoever he is, wherever he's hiding—we'll find him. And when we do—"
"I want to be there." Her eyes met mine, fierce despite the tears. "When you find him. I want to be the one who makes him pay."
Something in my chest clenched. Pride, maybe. Or recognition. The same fire that had drawn me to her in the first place, burning brighter than ever despite everything she'd just lost.
"Together, then," I said. "We hunt him together."
She nodded slowly. Then her gaze dropped to the grimoire, and her expression softened.
"There's something else in the bag," I said softly. " A box. Small, wooden, wrapped in cloth. It fell out when I grabbed everything—I shoved it back in without looking."
Her whole body went still.
"The box," she whispered. "My mother's box."
"I didn't open it. I figured... whatever's inside, that's yours to see first."
She reached into the bag with trembling fingers and pulled out the small wooden box—the one she'd kept at the bottom of her belongings, wrapped in a tattered fabric, never touched.
She didn't open it now, either. Just held it in her palm, staring at it like it contained the secrets of the universe.
"Not yet," she said softly. "I'm not... I can't. Not yet."
"Whenever you're ready."
She looked up at me, and something in her expression made the wolf go quiet. Not the fire he was used to seeing. Something softer. More vulnerable.
"Why?" she asked. "Why do you keep doing this? Saving me. Protecting me. You barely know me."
Because you're mine, the wolf wanted to say. Because the moment I marked you, you became everything. Because I would tear the world apart to keep you safe.
But that wasn't what she needed to hear. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
"Because it's the right thing to do," I said instead. "And because you deserve someone who fights for you."
She stared at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, she reached out and laid her hand over mine.
"I'm starting to think you might actually be one of the good ones," she murmured.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. I'm still the man who marked you without your consent."
"True." But she didn't pull her hand away. "Though I'm starting to think that's not the whole story."
"It's not. But that's a conversation for another time."
She nodded, her eyes drifting closed. The calm-water was pulling her under. The exhaustion of grief and fear and relief all catching up at once.
"Rest," I said. "I'll be here when you wake up."
"Promise?" The word was barely a whisper, already half-asleep.
Promise, the wolf echoed fiercely. We promise. We'll always be here. Always.
"Promise, little witch," I said aloud.
Her breathing deepened. Her hand relaxed in mine. And within moments, she was asleep.
I sat beside the bed and watched her breathe, the grimoire still clutched against her chest like a talisman. Outside, the Divide stirred and schemed and waited. Somewhere out there, a faceless man was celebrating his victory.
He wouldn't celebrate for long.
I leaned back in the chair, my hand still holding hers, and let myself plan.
The hunt would begin soon.
And when we found him—when we caught the bastard who'd tried to burn my mate's past to ashes—I would let her strike the first blow.
The killing blow, though...
That one was mine.