3. Sakura
THREE
SAKURA
One week since full opening.
Three clients total.
I rearrange the salt room for the fourth time this morning, repositioning crystals that don’t need repositioning, adjusting the ambient lighting that was already perfect.
The walls glitter with embedded minerals, casting fractured rainbows across the floor.
Beautiful. Pristine. Completely empty of anyone who might actually pay me for my services.
Word travels fast in small towns. Word about weather witches who create thunderstorms during client sessions travels faster.
At least no one’s asked me to leave yet.
The thought is bitter. Familiar. I shove it down and focus on the amethyst cluster that’s tilted slightly to the left. There. Fixed. The room is now marginally more perfect than it was thirty seconds ago.
The bell above my front door chimes.
I practically sprint out of the salt room, hope surging despite my best efforts to contain it. A client. Finally, a client. Someone willing to overlook one tiny atmospheric incident and give me a chance to—
Berry Thornwick stands in my reception area, arms full of books, her familiar—or possibly the semi-sentient bookshop itself, no one’s quite sure—apparently having decided I needed reading material.
“Delivery!” She beams at me with the scattered enthusiasm of someone who spends more time with fictional characters than real people.
Her hair is escaping its braid in approximately seventeen different directions.
“The shop insisted. Very insistent. Wouldn’t let me leave until I grabbed these for you. ”
I eye the stack. “The shop insisted?”
“It does that sometimes. Picks books for people. Usually right about it, too.” She deposits the pile on my reception desk with a thump. “These are specifically for you. The shop was very clear.”
I glance at the spines. Romance novels. Every single one of them. Paranormal romance, specifically—shifters and fated mates and all the tropes I’ve been avoiding because they hit too close to home. All by someone named Milly Taiden.
The top one is called Bearfoot and Pregnant. The cover features a woman and a massive, shirtless man with abs that could grate cheese.
“The shop picked these.” I keep my voice carefully neutral.
Berry nods earnestly. “I don’t question it anymore. The shop knows things.”
I flip through the stack. Fur-ocious Mate. Scaling Her Dragon. Her Purrfect Match. And at the bottom, like the shop saved the most pointed message for last: Wolf Protector.
Protector. Of course.
I set the books down harder than necessary.
“Tell the shop I said thanks.”
“Will do!” Berry waves and disappears back into the misty morning, leaving me alone with a stack of romance novels I don’t need and zero actual clients.
I stare at the books. The books stare back.
“I’m not reading you,” I inform them.
The rose quartz on my desk—still crooked, always crooked—seems to judge me.
“I’m not.”
The morning crawls by.
I clean things that don’t need cleaning. Reorganize my crystal inventory twice. Water plants that are already adequately hydrated. Practice my grounding exercises until I’m so centered I might actually sink through the floor.
No clients.
The mist outside my windows shifts from gold to silver to pale gray, reflecting my mood with embarrassing accuracy. I’ve learned that Mistvale’s mist responds to strong emotions—mine more than most, apparently. Right now, it’s the color of disappointment.
I’m contemplating reorganizing the salt room for a fifth time when the bell chimes again.
Please be a client. Please be someone who wants their chakras balanced and doesn’t care about minor weather incidents.
The door opens.
A massive shape fills the doorframe.
Bear.
Threat.
It’s him. Torin.
He’s wearing flannel and boots and an expression that might be neutral if his gaze wasn’t so direct.
His eyes find mine. A jolt runs through me—recognition, awareness, heat that has no business being there.
No. Absolutely not. I am not doing this.
“Hey, Torin.” My voice comes out sharper than intended. Two months of him hovering at the edges of my life and I still wasn’t ready for him standing in my doorway.
He steps inside, and suddenly my studio feels much smaller. The crystals in my windows seem to lean toward him. The plants perk up. Even the air shifts, warming slightly, and I don’t think it’s my doing.
He holds out a cup without a word—smaller than the one in his other hand, still warm. I take it before I can stop myself.
He inclines his head—that same gesture from across the square, contained and oddly formal. “Thought I’d stop pretending I’m not here for you specifically. Officially, I’m still your monitor.”
Monitor.
You. They sent someone to monitor you. Because you’re a disturbance.
The familiar shame floods through me, and with it, the wind picks up outside. My chimes begin their frantic jingle.
“Monitor.” I cross my arms over my chest. “You mean babysit.”
“No.”
“Spy on?”
“No.”
“Then what, exactly, does ‘monitor’ mean?”
He considers the question with more seriousness than it deserves. Takes his time answering, like he’s actually thinking about it rather than just deflecting.
“Observe. Report back if there’s a genuine threat.” The rumble in his voice settles somewhere in my chest. “There isn’t.”
“You’ve known me for thirty seconds.”
“I’ve been observing for a while.”
The admission hits differently than it should. He’s been watching me. The man who made my magic spark just by meeting my gaze has been watching me reorganize crystals and argue with my rose quartz and create minor indoor precipitation events.
Color rises in my cheeks. Embarrassment or anger or attraction I refuse to name.
“Get out.”
He doesn’t move.
“I said get out.”
“I heard you.”
“Then why are you still standing there?”
“Because I’m not leaving.”
The wind outside intensifies. I feel my weather responding to my temper, clouds gathering overhead, pressure dropping. If I don’t get control of myself, I’m going to create another thunderstorm, and this time there will be a witness.
A witness who will report back to the Protection Network that I’m unstable and dangerous and need to be dealt with.
“Are you going to stand there all day?”
“Sit, actually.” He moves toward the waiting area—two small chairs I bought for clients I don’t have—and lowers himself into one. It groans under his weight but holds. Barely. “If necessary.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Good.” His gaze meets mine again, patient and infuriatingly calm. “I’m not offering to babysit.”
“Then what are you offering?”
“Company. Backup if you need it. Someone to blame if things go wrong.”
I stare at him. Of all the responses I expected—threats, warnings, ultimatums—that wasn’t one of them.
“That’s... surprisingly practical.”
The wind dies. Anger I understand. This feeling, whatever it is, apparently doesn’t know what weather to make.
He notices. Of course, he notices. His eyes flick to the window, to the settling mist, back to me. His mouth twitches—not quite a smile, but close.
I look down at the cup still in my hand. My usual, right down to the extra sugars. Marcus’s careful script on the side.
“How did you know what I drink?”
“I asked.”
“Asked who?”
“Everyone.”
The word sits between us. Everyone. He asked everyone in Mistvale what coffee I drink.
I don’t know what to do with that information. Neither does my weather, which produces a confused mix of sunshine and drizzle that makes the mist outside sparkle.
He watches it happen. Watches the sun break through clouds while rain continues to fall. The corner of his lip quirks.
Is that amusement? Is this man laughing at my emotional weather?
“I’m not going to apologize for the disturbances.” I lift my chin, defiant. “I’m working on control. It takes time.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t need supervision. I’ve managed for twenty-six years without a Protection Network babysitter.”
“Monitor.”
“Whatever.”
“And I’m not asking you to apologize.” He settles deeper into the too-small chair, looking for all the world like he plans to stay there indefinitely. “I’m not asking you for anything.”
“Then why are you here?”
The question hangs between us. Direct. Demanding an answer that I suspect isn’t going to be simple.
He sips his coffee.
“Because when they talked about you at the meeting, they used words like ‘unstable’ and ‘concerning’ and ‘potential threat.’”
The wind chimes outside go quiet.
The ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Drink your coffee before it gets cold. I’m not going anywhere.”
I should argue. Should tell him to leave again, more emphatically this time. Should create a thunderstorm just to prove I can.
Instead, I drink my coffee.
It’s perfect.
He stays for four hours.
Four hours of sitting in my waiting area, drinking coffee, occasionally scrolling through his phone. He doesn’t demand conversation. Doesn’t hover. Doesn’t watch me with the nervous attention of someone waiting for an explosion.
He’s just... present.
Two clients come in during that time. Two. More than I’ve had all week. A nervous pixie who wants help with her sleep issues, and a werewolf with chronic tension that’s affecting his shifts.
Both of them glance at Torin when they enter. Both of them relax when he nods in greeting—casual, comfortable, like his presence is the most natural thing in the world.
Is he making them more comfortable? Or am I less anxious because he’s here?
I don’t examine the question too closely.
When the werewolf leaves—shoulders looser, tension visibly reduced—Torin finally stands. The chair creaks with relief.
“Same time tomorrow?”
“You’re coming back?”
“Unless you’d prefer I didn’t.”
Yes. No. I don’t know.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Always.” He pulls on his jacket. “But I’ll be in the square tomorrow morning either way. Might as well have coffee.”
He leaves before I can formulate a response. The bell chimes. The door closes. The studio feels emptier than it did before he arrived.
I stare at the chair he occupied. It’s still warm.
What just happened?
The next three days establish a pattern.