Chapter 11
Finn's been lying to me through the bond all day.
Not real lies. He can't do that, not with his heartbeat running a parallel track beneath mine.
But he's been burying something under so many layers of forced calm that the effort itself gives him away.
Every time I look at him, a pulse of anticipation leaks through before he smothers it, followed by a spike of nerves he covers with a grin.
I catch it for the fourth time over dinner at Knox and Sarah's, where Sarah shifts in her chair for the fifth time in ten minutes, one hand braced against the underside of her belly.
She's enormous now, the kind of pregnant where standing up requires strategy and sitting down requires Knox's arm.
He cuts her chicken without being asked, slides her water glass closer when she reaches for it, adjusts the cushion behind her lower back.
"Stop hovering," Sarah tells him.
"I'm not hovering." He refills her water. "I'm helping."
She catches my eye across the table and mouths help me. I grin into my fork.
After dinner, while Knox and Finn clear plates, Sarah grabs my wrist and pulls me onto the couch beside her. Her belly presses against my arm and I feel the baby kick through the fabric of her shirt, a sharp jab that makes us both flinch.
"He's been doing that all day." She rubs the spot with her palm. "I think he's trying to escape."
"He's got your impatience."
She laughs, then goes quiet. Her fingers find mine on the cushion between us.
"You're happy." Not a question. She studies my face with the directness that made me trust her the first week I knew her. "Like, really happy. Not just Finn-happy. Nightfall Cove-happy."
"Yeah." The word comes out softer than I intend. "I am."
"Good." She squeezes my hand. "Because I need someone sane to help me raise this kid, and Knox's idea of parenting advice is 'he'll be fine, he's an orc.'"
From the kitchen, Knox's voice, "Orc children are resilient."
"He has ears like a bat," Sarah mutters, and I laugh hard enough that the baby kicks again.
"What are you up to?" I ask Finn on the ride home, his Harley vibrating beneath us, the salt air off the harbor cool against my arms.
"Nothing." His voice carries over the engine, easy and smooth.
"Liar." I press my cheek against his back and feel anticipation, nerves, joy, all of it swirling too fast for him to stop. "I can feel you scheming."
His laugh rolls through his ribs and into mine. "Using the bond is cheating."
"The bond is doing its job. You're the one broadcasting at full volume."
He squeezes my knee where it grips his hip and doesn't answer.
The motorcycle carves up the hill toward the compound, past streets still marked with the hurricane's signature.
A fresh-cut stump where the old oak on Harbor Road stood for sixty years.
A section of boardwalk rebuilt with lumber so new it gleams yellow under the streetlights.
Two weeks since the storm blew through and Nightfall Cove knits itself back together the way small towns do: stubborn and loud and one neighborhood barbecue at a time.
My life filled in around the edges while the town put itself back together.
Fourteen residents stitched up, two broken bones set, one concussion referred to the mainland hospital.
Finn's kitchen, our kitchen, now holds groceries that constitute meals instead of the protein bars and black coffee he survived on before me.
Four dinners with Sarah and Knox, two shifts at the clinic with Dr. Bryce back and grumbling about the state of the roof, and one very long phone call with my mother in Virginia where she cried about how far away I live and then asked if Finn's tusks make it hard to kiss him.
I belong here. The realization stopped surprising me around day four.
The apartment door sticks. Finn shoulders it open ahead of me, which should register as odd because he usually holds it for me from behind, one hand on the small of my back. But the bond jangles with so much nervous energy that I'm focused on that instead of the door.
I step inside, and the air smells like candles.
A dozen of them line the kitchen counter, the bookshelf, the windowsill, their flames casting the apartment in a warm, unsteady glow that turns the bare walls soft.
Wildflowers, not roses, because Finn pays attention when I talk, crammed into a mason jar on the counter.
The kind that grow wild along the bluffs south of town.
Purple clover, Queen Anne's lace, stalks of goldenrod that lean crooked against each other.
I mentioned them once, months ago, told Sarah they reminded me of the fields behind my grandmother's house in Roanoke.
"Who lit these?" Because we've been at Knox and Sarah's for two hours.
He grins. "Colt owed me a favor."
"You trusted Colt with open flames in our apartment?"
"He sent me a photo fifteen minutes ago. Everything still standing." He pulls his phone from his pocket and flashes the screen—a blurry shot of candles on the counter, Colt's thumb covering half the lens. "Mostly."
He taps the screen, and music replaces the photo. Low, acoustic, the Hozier track I hummed in the shower last week without thinking about it, the one I didn't realize he heard. He props the phone against the coffee maker and pockets his hands.
"What's all this?"
He stands in the middle of our apartment with his hands in the pockets of his jeans and his shoulders drawn tight, but his body holds steady, broad and solid, his flannel rolled to his elbows and his boots planted on the floor.
Beneath the surface, underneath the grin he's wearing like armor, he shakes with a need so raw it punches the air out of me.
He drops to one knee.
A ring sits in his palm. A deep amber stone set in carved metal, the band etched with twin mountain peaks I recognize from the pendant around his neck. Orc craftsmanship, the kind that takes a lifetime to learn and generations to perfect. Through the bond I feel the weight of it.
"A few weeks isn't long enough—"
"Yes."
He blinks. "I didn't even ask yet."
"Ask faster."
His throat works. The grin cracks, and beneath it I see the man who spent his life believing he came second to everyone, every time, in every room.
The man who volunteered for a hurricane because he couldn't stay away from a woman who wouldn't look at him.
The man who was there for me through a flashback, gave his blood to save a brother in arms, kissed my combat scars and called them proof I survived.
"Marry me." His voice scrapes rough and low. "Have babies with me. Fight with me. Build a life with me. Be my first. My everything."
The tears hit before I can stop them.
"Yes to all of it."
He's off his knee and his arms close around my waist before the last word leaves my mouth. He lifts me off the floor, spinning me in the narrow kitchen, and I grab his shoulders and laugh into his neck while the candles flicker and the wildflowers blur into streaks of purple and gold.
"We're getting married," he says against my hair. "You said yes. You actually—I had a whole speech planned, Kitten. You ruined my speech."
"Sorry honey, it was a good speech." I pull back to look at him and his face is wrecked, eyes bright, jaw unsteady, the charm stripped clean. The man underneath, and mine.
He slides the ring onto my finger. The metal warms against my skin, heavy and smooth, and the stone catches candlelight and throws an amber glow across our joined hands.
"This was my mother's ring." He turns my hand in his, watching the stone catch the light. "Four generations of Stone women. Knox had it this whole time. He told me it was never his to give Sarah—that Mom gave it to him and told him to carry it until I needed it."
I kiss him. His mouth opens under mine and joy ignites between us, not the slow burn of contentment or the steady hum of daily life but a full-body flare so fierce my knees buckle. He catches me, palms on my hips, my back hitting the wall beside the kitchen doorway.
A picture frame rattles off its nail and crashes to the floor.
Neither of us looks down.
His mouth drags from my lips to my jaw, my throat, the claiming mark at the base of my neck.
He presses against the scar, and possessiveness floods through him so thick I feel it through the bond.
The mark pulses warm, every touch feeding his want into mine until my fingers close around his top and yank it from his jeans.
"Bed?" His voice, rough against my skin.
"Later." I pull his shirt over his head and his chest fills my vision, green-skinned, scarred, massive. My palms flatten against his pecs and his heart hammers beneath the muscle, his pulse and mine running tandem.
The amber in his irises shrinks to a thin ring, swallowed by blown pupils, and the rumble builds in his chest, vibrating against my palms. He pins me against the wall with his hips, his cock hard against my stomach through his jeans, and his hands slide beneath my thighs and lift.
I wrap my legs around his waist and he holds me there, one arm hooked under my ass, the other braced flat against the wall beside my head. The muscles in his arms don't strain. He holds me like breathing, effortless and sure, and the strength of it sends heat pooling low in my belly.
"You're sure about later?" He grins against my neck, and the broken tusk scrapes along my collarbone, the rough edge dragging a shiver up my spine. "I have a very nice bed twelve feet away."
I grind against him and his hold tightens on my thigh, his fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. I want the bruises. Want the proof of his hands on me when I look in the mirror tomorrow.