Chapter 11 #2
I have, in fact, not looked at the route in eleven minutes.
I’ve been looking at a fixed point in the middle distance that is definitely not Nash’s hands, which are resting on his knees, which are very close to mine.
Hands that once touched me in places that drew noises from me not unlike that cooked rabbit I ate earlier.
My core starts to heat.
I force myself to think about other things. My father. His retirement. His plans to maybe leave town. The distraction only partly works, but I manage to even out my breathing.
Nash keeps shifting closer, though.
By the time the light starts to shift toward late afternoon, we are pressed lightly together from shoulder to knee, and neither of us has acknowledged it, and the supply route remains empty, and Echo is back and asleep in my lap, and I am losing a war I didn’t agree to fight.
Dinner is quiet. Not uncomfortable—the opposite, which is its own kind of problem. We’ve moved past the performed ease of people getting to know each other and into something more unguarded. The spaces between sentences have stopped needing to be filled. It feels dangerously like friendship.
That’s how I know I’m in trouble.
The only quiet ease I’ve ever felt with another human is my father and maybe Crow. Not that Grey and Dutch and the others don’t put me at ease, but those assholes never shut up. Especially Dutch.
Being with Nash is starting to feel safer than being without him. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve really fucked myself by spending these days alone with him out here. And I’m starting to wonder if he knows it. If that was his plan all along.
“I’ve been wondering about something you said the other day,” I say, mostly to distract myself from my own thoughts.
“Uh-oh. Why do I get the feeling I’m in trouble?”
“You said you envied Echo.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Because Echo does what he wants. He wanted back into your life, so he came back.”
“And you didn’t?”
His gaze returns to mine. “I wanted to every damn day. But you asked me not to.”
The words land harder than they should.
“Wanting you didn’t give me the right to ignore what you chose,” he says. I look back at the trees because I’m not ready for him to see what that does to me.
“So yes,” he adds dryly. “Occasionally, I envy the raccoon.”
“He also eats garbage,” I point out.
“It has its tradeoffs.”
I laugh at that.
“Tell me something true,” he says, the moment giving way to something suddenly more intense.
The fire is lower now, the light warmer. He’s moved away from me a bit while he cooks—another rabbit he caught for us earlier—but the distance feels notional at this point. Symbolic.
“You say that like all I’ve told you are lies,” I joke.
“No, not lies. But truth is personal. And I want the real you. Behind the curtain, remember?”
“That’s a dangerous ask.”
“I know.”
I look at the fire for a moment. Don’t, I tell myself. You don’t have to give him this. It’s too much. You’ll go too far to come back from.
But the woods are dark, and the fire is warm, and I've been sitting all day with nothing but my own thoughts, and I’m tired—genuinely tired—of holding everything at arm’s length. Especially him.
You’re allowed to let someone in, Lexi had said.
“What do you want to know?” I ask.
“What was it like growing up as a general’s daughter?”
It’s not what I expect him to ask. But he’s right. The truth is personal. So, I tell him.
“I spent most of my life being the only woman in the room,” I say.
“In the pack hierarchy. Strategy meetings, tactical briefings, enforcement decisions—I was always the only one, and that was if they invited me at all.” I pause.
“At first, they invited me only because of my dad, who he was to the alpha. I was good enough that they couldn’t ignore me.
But I always knew there was a ceiling. That, no matter what I did, the general’s position would go to someone who looked like them. ”
“Did it?”
“It was going to.” I look at the fire. “And then Grey came back, and Lexi happened, and everything changed.” A pause.
“But I spent a lot of years building skills that were always going to be worth less than someone else’s because of what I am.
That does something to you. The way you hold yourself. The way you trust.”
Nash is quiet. Not uncomfortable quiet; the kind of quiet that means he’s actually listening.
“My mother was the same,” I say, quieter now.
“Brilliant. Capable. Completely at the mercy of a system that didn’t see her.
” I pause. “She got sick, and the pack’s medical protocols were built for wolves who presented like men, and by the time anyone took her seriously—” I stop, suddenly not trusting my voice.
It’s mostly rage, but tears can be angry just as easily as they can be sad.
“Mia,” he says.
“I'm fine,” I say automatically.
“I know you are.” He says it simply. Not arguing, not pushing. Just acknowledging that fine and okay are not the same thing and he knows the difference. “She sounds like someone worth being angry on behalf of.”
The words hit the unguarded parts of myself.
I look at the fire for a long moment. My wolf is close to the surface in the way she gets when I need protection.
“I learned early that this world wasn’t going to make space for me,” I say finally. “So, I made my own.” I glance at him. “It’s worked. I’m good at it. But it’s—” I stop again.
“Lonely,” he says quietly.
I don’t answer.
Which is its own answer.
I’m aware of how much I’ve said tonight, how much more than I intended, how far I am from the carefully managed version of myself I brought to that first meeting outside Grey’s office.
I need distance.
“Tomorrow,” I say, keeping my voice even. “I think we should split up again but make it a full day. Watch the perimeter. Meet back at dusk.”
He looks at me steadily. “Why?”
“Efficiency. We’ll cover more ground—”
“Mia.”
“It makes tactical sense to—”
“Does it?” His voice is quiet. Calm. “Or does it feel safer because you’ve said more tonight than you meant to, and being alone is easier than sitting with what this feels like?”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
The fire pops between us. Echo, who has migrated back to his rock, opens one eye and closes it again.
“Do I make you that nervous?” he asks.
I can’t answer. Because the truth is yes, he does. Not because he’s dangerous but because he’s the opposite. And I don’t have a defense against that.
He looks at me for a moment longer. Then he stands.
“Mia,” he says again.
He reaches down and pulls me to my feet. I have no idea why, but I let him. Then I look at him—this infuriatingly patient, certain, quietly devastating man standing in the firelight in the middle of the woods—and I know what’s coming, and I don’t move.
“Prepotente,” I whisper.
He cups my face in both hands, tilting my chin up.
And then he kisses me.
Soft at first. A question. One I know I should cut off right here and now. But I’m tired of running, and when he deepens the kiss, I don’t pull back.
I sink into it.
Into him.
This time, I know exactly what I’m choosing.
My hands find his shirt, and I pull rather than push. He makes a low sound against my mouth that my wolf answers from somewhere deep in my chest, and the fire pops, and the woods are dark, and I stop thinking about walls entirely.