Chapter 18 - Mara
I wake to the sound of birdsong and a gentle breeze.
For a moment, I don’t know where I am, but as Cade’s scent washes over me and I settle deeper into the pillows, it slowly comes back to me.
Cade’s bed. Not the clinic, not the spare room I’d been using.
Cade insisted, and I didn’t even want to fight him on it. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.
I’m not dead.
I lie there for a while, not moving, just letting the ache in my neck and the dull pulse in my head ground me to the reality of the room.
The sheets are heavy and clean, the pillows still warm from where he must have slept, and for the first time in maybe a decade, I don’t feel like I have to get up and do something.
Even the pain in my neck feels like a distant memory, muted by the soft weight of the duvet and the fact that I’m here, alive, in a bed that smells like Cade.
I roll to my side, burying my face in the pillow that still holds the faint warmth of his sleep.
My hands drift over the sheets, tracing the tangle of threadbare flannel and crisp linen, and I let myself sink into it.
This is so far removed from the foster home I was put in after my parents died, or the bare rooms the hunters let me sleep in.
It should have still felt like a prison, considering how I arrived here, and yet, it doesn’t.
It feels stupidly safe. It’s dangerous, really, how easy it is to fall into the fantasy that I could just stop.
I’m not sure what time it is. There’s no clock in the room, just the slow passage of sunlight across the ceiling and the birds outside singing in the trees.
When I finally work up the courage to check my neck, I reach up with shaking fingers and probe the skin just below my jaw.
There’s a ridge of scar tissue, rough and raised, but the pain is minimal, almost nonexistent.
Travis had said I’d be lucky not to need some help with talking, but here I am, voice intact, breathing on my own.
I don’t get it. Cade’s blood is supposed to help shifters heal, but I’m not a shifter.
I know I have the omega DNA, but everyone still seemed surprised that it worked.
Everyone except Cade. The fact that his blood healed me seems less of a surprise and more of a confirmation; he simply said, “As it should.”
I smell something drifting through from the kitchen, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s coffee and the unmistakable scent of bacon and something sweet, like pancakes.
My stomach growls, loud enough to startle me.
I’m almost embarrassed by the sound, but then I realize that hunger is a privilege.
I should be dying, or at least barely able to move, but instead I’m ravenous.
My body feels…fine. Better than fine, almost like yesterday was merely a nightmare, and the memory of pain is already fading.
I sit up, testing the limits of my body, half-expecting to feel the pull of stitches or the sting of a healing wound.
There’s a dull tingle under the scar, but nothing else, no real pain at all.
I flex my hands, wiggle my toes, then swing my legs over the side of the bed.
I’m unsteady for the first few steps, but not weak.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror by the closet: wild hair, skin pale but not sickly, the scar on my neck angry and pink but otherwise unremarkable.
As I straighten and stretch, I realize that I feel remarkably fine.
I can’t see any of my clothes, only the simple T-shirt I’m still wearing, so I grab one of Cade’s shirts, so big it fits me like a dress.
It’s red and black plaid, soft and worn at the collar, and when I slip it over my head, I instantly feel warmer, the fabric holding the memory of his body heat.
I pad barefoot down the hallway, following the sound of a pan scraping and the low hum of Cade’s voice, half-singing to himself in the kitchen.
He’s at the stove, shirtless, sweatpants hanging low on his hips, forearms braced on the counter as he flips a mess of eggs and bacon in the skillet. There’s a fresh pot of coffee on, and the table is already set, two mugs and a plate stacked high with toast.
I should say good morning. I should say something clever, or at least thank him for saving my life, but all I can do is stare.
I want to blame it on residual heat, the omega stuff, but it’s not that.
It’s him, just him, the way his back flexes when he moves, the easy power in his hands.
The way he moves around his own kitchen like he’s never once questioned his right to take up space in the world.
He senses me before I make a sound. Maybe he hears the shift of my breath, or maybe he just knows when I’m watching, because he turns around, and there’s a split second where his face softens, like he’s relieved to see me standing there.
“Hey,” he says, voice rough with sleep. “You’re up.”
The words are simple, but I hear the emotion in them. I’m up. I’m alive.
“Yeah,” I say, and my own voice surprises me, a little hoarse but otherwise strong. “Weird, right?”
He turns away again and starts plating some of the food while I drift to the table and sit, folding my legs underneath me on the bench. It’s early enough that the light in the kitchen is still pale, and I glance out the window, almost surprised at how calm the world looks out there.
Cade doesn’t say anything at first. He finishes the eggs and piles them onto a plate, along with enough bacon to feed a small army. He pours me a full mug of coffee, black with three sugars, just like I take it, and sets it in front of me. The smell alone is enough to make my stomach rumble loudly.
He sits across from me with his plate, and we say nothing, but I can’t help remembering what he said at the clinic about wanting to be with me, properly, not because I’m an omega, but for me.
He wanted me to stay. He said it so simply, so like he meant it, and I was so doped up and out of my mind from blood loss and pain that I don’t even remember what I said back.
Or if I said anything at all. I wonder if he regrets it now.
Or maybe he’s waiting for me to say something.
I set the fork down and push the last of the food to the edge of the plate. “You’re staring,” I say. It comes out lighter than I mean, almost teasing.
“Eat,” he says, his lips twitching, but it’s not a command. It’s much softer than that.
“I remember what you said,” I blurt, and then immediately wish I could die.
My face goes hot. “At the clinic. You said you wanted me. Not because of the…omega thing, but because you wanted me.” I can’t look at him, so I stare at my plate and push the food around. “I don’t know if I said anything back.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Eventually, I look up and find him watching me, his jaw working like he’s chewing on words. “You didn’t have to,” he says, voice almost a rumble. “You’re alive. That’s all I wanted.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. For a second, I’m afraid I might start crying, and that would be the most embarrassing thing possible, so I focus on the food, the warmth of the coffee, the steady beat of my heart.
“But I do want to say something,” I say, finally, “and I want to say it before I lose my nerve.”
Cade’s face doesn’t move, but I see the way his shoulders tense, the slight flare of his nostrils as he waits for me.
For a split second, I wonder if he thinks I’m about to say goodbye, that maybe I’ll run the second I’m strong enough to make it out the door.
But that’s not it. Not even close. I take a deep breath, and for once, I just say the truth.
“I want to stay,” I say, and the words come out calm and clear and a little terrifying.
“Not because you saved me, not because of the mate bond we seem to have, not because of the omega heat or any of that. I want to stay because I…” I almost choke on the word, but I let it through.
“Because I want you. Because I can’t imagine going back to the city, or the Order, or anyplace else as long as you’re here.
I don’t care if I’m not a real shifter. I want to stay. ”
He goes very still, like a wolf scenting danger, and I’m suddenly so anxious that I have to keep talking or I’ll explode. “I know I’m not a shifter, and I know you could have anyone you wanted, and maybe you’ll regret it, but I just…I need you to know that I want this. I want you.”
There’s a long silence, and then Cade pushes his chair back and moves around the table so fast I barely see it coming.
His hands are on either side of my face, gentle but inescapably firm, and he kisses me, slow and deep and so careful that my heart cracks open.
After everything, after all the blood and violence and pain, it’s this, his mouth on mine, the warmth of his hands, the way he breathes my name into me, that makes me feel like I’m finally home.
He pulls away, resting his forehead against mine. “I don’t care that you’re not a shifter. You’re not exactly human, either, and none of it matters,” he says, voice low and rough. “And you’re not going to regret this. Not ever.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to get self-conscious, doesn’t let the silence creep back in.
Cade lifts me right up off the bench, hands under my thighs, plates and coffee sloshing as I yelp in surprise, and then he’s carrying me down the hall like I weigh nothing.
The world falls away until it’s just his body, heat and muscle, and the feeling of his stubble against my neck as he pushes open the bedroom door with his shoulder.
He sets me down on the bed with a gentleness that feels surprising considering his size, but the look on his face is anything but gentle.
All the restraint he showed in the kitchen is gone.
There’s a hunger in him, something truly wild, and I feel it burn through me, aching in places that still remember the last time he touched me.