6. Identical Dates #3
I need proof before I hand it to Fate. That is the logic.
It is also cowardice wearing a badge.
I stand because staying seated feels like being trapped in my own failure.
Fate’s gaze follows me. “You’re leaving.”
“I need to check something at the station.”
My phone is on the table. Silent. Useless.
I pick it up anyway. “There are pending records.”
“You are a detective.”
Her tone is light again. Too light.
I gather my laptop, camera, and the printouts. I leave the cemetery photos of Amelia and Gideon on the table because taking them feels cruel.
At the doorway to the sunroom, I stop. “Lock your wards behind me.”
Her mouth curves faintly. “Was that concern or an order?”
“Yes.”
There. A flicker. Almost a smile.
Then gone.
“Drive safe, Detective Wolfe.”
Detective.
Not Dorian.
I nod once because anything more honest will break something neither of us is ready to name.
Outside, the rain has softened to mist. I close the cottage door carefully behind me and stand on the porch for one breath too long.
Inside, Fate is alone with the dead, the records, and the lie I left on her table.
I tell myself I am protecting her until I can prove the truth. But as I walk to the car, pelted by rain, the thought follows me with teeth. Maybe I am only protecting myself from what she will see when she finally looks at me and knows.
I make it to the car before my control starts to fracture.
My hands remain steady as I unlock the door. My breathing stays even. I put the laptop and camera on the passenger seat with enough care to suggest I am a reasonable man who has not just walked out of Fate D’Amour’s cottage carrying a family ghost under his ribs.
Then I sit behind the wheel, close the door, and stare at the steering wheel.
Rain beads on the windshield. The cottage blurs beyond it, all soft white walls, blue shutters, fox-shaped knocker, and stubborn flowers climbing the porch like they are personally invested in survival.
Fate is inside. Alive. Angry, probably. Hurt, definitely.
My wolf prowls beneath my skin. He does not understand withholding. Wolves have simple rules: threat, protect, claim, kill if necessary. And that simplicity is the cornerstone of my fear right now.
I pull out my phone and reopen the article.
BAY WIDOW DISPUTE ENDS IN BLOODSHED — 1973
Marcus Wolfe. Elias D’Amour. Seraphina Vale.
A woman choosing. A man or shifter killing. A confession. A retraction. A death in custody.
I zoom in on the photograph. Marcus Wolfe stands stiff beside Seraphina Vale, broad shoulders, expression controlled too tightly. Elias D’Amour smiles at the camera as if charm could soften whatever tension already lived between them.
Seraphina’s hand rests near Elias. Not touching. Almost.
My stomach turns.
I have seen that kind of almost. I have lived in that kind of almost with Fate for too long. The brush of a shoulder. The hidden hand under a table. The joke that almost becomes confession before both of us retreat behind safer walls.
What if almost is all it takes?
What if the curse does not need love declared? What if it feeds on the moment a bond becomes visible to whatever is watching?
My warlock side wants lineage charts. Birth certificates. Arrest records. Blood records. Old custody logs. Proof. It wants every Wolfe name beside every D’Amour death until pattern either collapses or convicts.
My wolf wants to go back inside. To stand between Fate and everything. Even if that everything is me.
I grip the steering wheel until the leather creaks.
Am I the protector or her inheritance?
The thought lands so cleanly it feels spoken.
I close my eyes. There it is. The fear underneath the fear.
What if the thing in my blood that wants to keep her safe is the same thing that made Marcus Wolfe pick up a gun? What if possessiveness can dress itself as protection so convincingly that a man never notices when love becomes ownership?
My phone buzzes.
For one stupid, hopeful second, I assume it is her.
It is Kelly.
Maintenance call logs came in. You want me to start without you?
Work. Blessed, brutal work.
I type back: No. On my way. Pull Wolfe/D’Amour historical records too. Quietly.
A pause.
Then: That sounds ominous.
It is.
I do not answer.
Instead, I start the car.
The engine turns over with a low growl, and the sound settles my wolf by a fraction. Motion helps. Roads help. Tasks help. Lies do not, but apparently I am trying those anyway.
I back out of Fate’s narrow lane carefully. In the rearview mirror, her cottage remains bright against the gray morning, a small defiant thing full of warmth, wards, and a woman who has already become too central to every dangerous thought I possess.
I should drive to the station.
I do drive to the station.
But every road out of her lane feels like I’m heading in the wrong direction.
Every turn feels temporary.
Every mile feels like a lie stretched thinner.
Because no matter where I point the car, no matter how many records I pull or how many facts I stack between my bloodline and my fear—
every road in Everwilde feels like it leads me back to Fate.