Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
ASH
The council table is busier than usual, two seats set in the middle for Josephine and me.
I still feel her awe. The warmth of knowing Mags accepts her freely. The quieter scrutiny as she eyes the others, measuring their motives and loyalties.
My hands are folded in front of me, and Mags beams with pride.
“The signal reached Raven’s Ridge,” Clay grumbles, removing and folding his reading glasses as he speaks.
“And stabilized,” Mags emphasizes.
A few members frown. But there’s no panic. No obvious alarm or even displeasure. More an unending ripple of curiosity as they catch eyefuls of her without staring.
“We’re still waiting on a government response,” Wilton says.
“If there is one,” Mags replies.
He sits back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “Only time will tell.”
“No more spikes?” Clay asks. “No more destabilization?”
Wilton shakes his head, face guarded.
“Peace,” Josephine adds. “Peace together.”
I wrap my arm around her, unable to hold back. No one objects.
It’s the story written in stone. The story written in us that the Sentinels couldn’t erase.
I send steadiness to her through my touch. She smiles up at me like she needed it, still skeptical about some of the folks here.
In truth, I am too. Not everyone here feels settled. Not yet.
Josephine studies me for a moment, then whispers, “Are all the Wildbloods in this room? Is this all of you?”
The question surprises me. There’s still so much she doesn’t know.
“There are others,” I say quietly. “Not all of us learned how to live among humans. Some of them prefer it that way.”
I feel the shiver that passes through her. “Is that a normal Wildblood thing?”
I feel her thoughts racing ahead—worrying about the future. Our legacy. Our family.
My hand rises to her jaw, thumb brushing her skin. “There’s nothing in the world that could part me from you.”
After the meeting, we stop at the cafe, and I order food to go. Then, we head to her rocks, sitting among the images for a picnic.
She maps mineral veins. Geological composite.
I mend fences and talk to the cattle, always admiring Josephine from a distance. Her face grows serious mid-concentration. She leans forward to trace a line across a stone. Then, she pauses to mark something in her journal.
But her eyes keep following me when she thinks I’m not looking. Mischief simmering somewhere low.
Finally, I can’t take anymore.
“What are you smiling about, Starlight?” I ask, crossing the distance.
She works to hide a grin.
Then I see it beneath her fingers. Hashes and lines, shadows and highlights. My face and torso rise from the page as if I’m part of the landscape.
“Come here,” I say, sitting down and drawing her between my legs.”
“You like it?”
“It’s good,” I say, taking it in, realizing for the first time in my life I finally feel like I belong.
She smiles, feeling it too.
Human. Happy. Grounded to this Earth and this woman.
But powerful. More powerful than anything I’ve ever felt.
Calm strength, like she said. Shared peace. A shared future, too.
Stabilization didn’t destroy us. It refined us.
Maybe it can refine others, too.