Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Rona
The kitchen table is set for two, ceramic bowls arranged just so, steam whispering from the pot of vegetable soup on the stove.
I'm wrapped in Darhg's oversized hoodie, sleeves pushed up to my elbows, surrounded by his scent and warmth like a cocoon.
Winter dusk turns the frost-etched windows to pewter, and the lamplight makes everything golden and peaceful.
Darhg’s cabin feels like a sanctuary to me. It feels more like home than anywhere I've ever lived.
The low thrum of an approaching engine makes my breath catch, fear and nerves knotting in my chest. Then relief melts through me as the SUV's familiar black silhouette slides past the snow-heavy pines.
My pulse quickens, not from fear this time, but from anticipation.
Ever since Jennifer's visit this afternoon, her words about mates who make room for you to be large have been echoing in my mind.
The door opens with a gust of frigid air, snow dust shaking from Darhg's broad shoulders. But that’s not what stops me dead in my tracks.
What’s stopping my brain from functioning normally is what he’s carrying with him.
His massive arms are loaded with packages and bags, and what appears to be a wooden easel is tucked under one arm.
I blink, my brain refusing to process what my eyes clearly see.
His expression is a fascinating contradiction. He looks embarrassed, with his ears flushed and gaze skittering away from mine, yet he also looks resolved, jaw set and shoulders squared like he's preparing for battle.
"I wasn't sure what you'd prefer," he says as he sets everything down with careful motion. "So I asked the shopkeeper at the art supply store for the best of, well, everything."
I stare in stunned silence as he unpacks bag after bag.
On the kitchen counter, he lines tubes of oil paints in every color imaginable—cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna—their labels pristine and waiting.
A wooden palette still smelling of fresh varnish joins the paint tubes.
Brushes appear in every size, from delicate detail work to broad strokes, their bristles soft and perfect.
Canvas boards, stretched canvases, and sketch pads pile on a chair.
There’s more. Charcoal pencils. A wooden box that opens to reveal compartments for mixing colors.
"Darhg," I breathe, my voice catching as he continues pulling items from the bags. "This is so generous. A whole studio's worth of supplies."
He pauses, a bottle of linseed oil in his large hands, and finally meets my eyes. "You said you wanted to paint again. I thought you would need proper supplies."
The words trail off, but I’m not sure it’s because they’re drowning under the sound of rushing blood in my ears. I realize Darhg truly listened. He didn’t just hear me.
He listened. He remembered. He cared. When I confessed my dreams in a moment of vulnerability, he didn't just pretend to hear me. He acted on it. For me.
For me to be large.
"I don't know what half of these things are for," he admits, gesturing at the organized chaos now covering our kitchen counter and table. "The woman at the shop, Mrs. Chen, she kept adding things. Said any serious artist would need them."
My throat closes up entirely. The sheer thoughtfulness of it, the care he took to make sure I had everything I could possibly need, overwhelms me completely. This isn't just art supplies. It’s encouragement. It’s faith. In me. In my ability.
It's him saying my dreams matter. That I matter.
"How much did all this cost?" I whisper, though part of me doesn't want to know.
He shrugs, that careful neutral expression sliding back into place. "Doesn't matter."
But it does matter. It matters that he spent what had to be a small fortune on supplies for a passion I mentioned once. It matters that he drove to town and asked questions and carried all of this back here for me.
I reach for one of the brushes, rolling the smooth wooden handle between my fingers. "I haven't painted in years, Darhg. What if I'm terrible at it now?"
"You won’t be," he says simply. "And all you need to prove it is right in front of you."
A shock of pure joy courses through my body. Not just at the gift itself, but at what it represents. He sees me. Not Senator Quinn's daughter, not a political accessory, not the carefully managed image I've been forced to maintain. He sees the girl I abandoned, the woman I want to become.
I throw my arms around his neck with a shaky laugh that's half sob, pressing my face against the warm column of his throat.
"You did this for me."
His response is awkward and soft, his large hands settling at my waist.
"Of course I did. How could I not? You deserve it, Rona."
The simple honesty of it nearly undoes me. When was the last time someone paid attention to what I wanted instead of what they needed me to be?
I pull back to look at him, my hands still resting on his chest. There's something else in his expression now, something more serious that cuts through the warmth of the moment. The softness of moments before vanishes, and I know he has news to share.
"What else happened?" I ask, though part of me doesn't want to break this perfect bubble we've created. “What did your contact tell you?”
He guides me to the sofa, his hands gentle but his posture stiff. When we sit, he turns to face me fully, and I can see him hesitate before he speaks.
"Malcolm confirmed what you already told everyone," he says, his tone even and low. "The clip's a deepfake, without a single doubt. It may be too late to convince the press or hold weight in the court of public opinion, but it's enough to prove it to your mother."
Relief floods through me, even though I already knew the video was fake. Having technical proof to bring to my mother is a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. But underneath that relief, frustration simmers. Of course, it's not enough to clear my name publicly. I fear nothing ever will be.
"That's something, at least," I manage, though my voice sounds hollow even to my own ears.
“There’s more. I think someone planted a tracker in your phone,” Darhg continues, his amber eyes steady as he speaks. "I gave it to Malcolm. If there's a tracker in it, he'll find it."
I feel a cold hand furrow in my guts as I nod my understanding.
He’s right, of course. There’s just no explanation for Gribble Nix showing up in such a small town as Saltford Bay, looking for me.
Thing is, I don’t leave my phone unattended often.
This means someone close to me did it. The violation of it makes my skin crawl, but underneath that immediate revulsion is something worse, the certainty that whoever did this is someone I trust.
Darhg's posture shifts, his hand resting on my knee squeezing just a little.
“There’s more, isn’t there?”
He nods, then his gaze goes from me to somewhere out the window. Somewhere far, far away.
"I went to see my father."
The words hang in the air between us, weighted with significance. I reach out, my small hand covering his. I stay silent, giving him time to tell me what he wants to tell me.
He describes driving to Farmouth's house, the squalor that greeted him there.
“I don’t know why I went there.” Darhg shakes his head. “Maybe I needed to see him to understand.”
He falls silent, looking down at his hands like he expects to see something else. Or the hands of someone else.
“To understand what, Darhg?” I gently probe.
“That I was never like him.” He shakes his head, still looking at his hands, his fingers flexing open and closed. “That whatever he had in him that made him act like that, it never had anything to do with me. He’s the only one who is guilty.”
I listen without interrupting, my thumb rubbing slow circles on his knuckles where his hand still rests on my knee.
My chest aches and eases simultaneously as he describes seeing his father clearly at last. Not the strong, protective figure a father should be, but something much smaller and more pathetic.
Weak enough to cut others down to feel tall.
Darhg looks back at me, his gaze direct and clear. The corner of his lips lifts in a faint, crooked smile that makes me want to cover his entire face with kisses.
"I know I'm not him," he says finally, his voice carrying a wonder that suggests this certainty is new. "I guess I needed to see it to believe it."
The words Jennifer spoke this afternoon echo in my mind: Fear of a thing is not the thing itself.
"You’re a good man, Darhg Rooke," I tell him, letting all my conviction ring in my voice. "You’re strong and true. You are a man worth trusting."
His small, almost surprised exhale makes something warm and expansive bloom in my chest.
"I know.” He nods, but it feels like it’s more to himself than to me. “At least, now I do."
Then he does something that stops my world completely.
He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses the inside of my wrist, his lips warm against my pulse point, his tusks pressing against the soft flesh.
When he looks at me again, his amber eyes are blazing with that vivid red that stirs an instant stab of lust low in my guts.
"I love you," he says, voice low and certain.
The words land like something that was always meant to be, fear loosening, replaced by the warm, expansive certainty Jennifer described. But he's not done.
He holds my gaze, unflinching. "You're it for me. You are my mate. You are the center of my life. I will not let anything bad happen to you, and I will spend my life making you happy. If you let me."
The declaration should terrify me. I've spent my entire life feeling suffocated by other people's expectations, other people's needs. But this doesn't feel like a cage. This feels like coming home.
“I love you, too.” I laugh, bright and shaky with relief and joy and a dozen other emotions I can't name. "Now shut up and kiss me."
He obliges immediately, his mouth claiming mine with a thoroughness that makes my knees weak. The kiss deepens until the room narrows to nothing but breath and heat and the solid warmth of his arms around me.
When we finally break apart, both breathing hard, he hooks his arm under my knees and lifts me effortlessly. I loop my arms around his neck, smiling into another kiss as he turns toward the hallway.
The hard wall of his muscles presses against my front along with a very sizeable erection as he lifts me up.
I wrap my legs around his waist, pushing my already wet core on the bulge, grinding my hips to increase the sensations.
His tusks create the softest rasp against my bottom lip, a sensation I'm learning to crave.
We're moving toward the bedroom, toward claiming another round of mind-bending pleasure, when a small tapping noise snaps the quiet.
Darhg puts me down without saying anything, then holds a finger to his mouth.
I nod, feeling cold all the way to my bones, my chest constricted with fear.
Darhg crosses the great room in three strides, then parts the curtain two inches.
It’s not much, but it’s enough to expose a long lens glinting at the corner of the window and a shadow hunched against the siding.
Someone is watching. Someone was taking pictures of us through the window.
That someone is Gribble Nix.
"Stay inside," Darhg shouts at me before sprinting into action. Then he rushes out into the cold and I stand there, frozen in place. Our safe little cocoon of warmth is over.
There's nowhere left to run.