Page 41 of Love At First Roar
You don’t want what I am.
She understood now. The line between them wasn’t just caution, it was survival. He’d made it clear. Keep things professional. Keep things safe.
So she would.
She’d had enough years depending on someone else. Enough time with her magic caged in someone else’s hands. She wouldn’t hand the weight of her past to Callum just because it was heavy. That wasn’t fair to him.
She didn’t need him to carry it. She needed to carry it better.
She wiped her forehead with her wrist and straightened. Her fingers still itched with the echo of that parchment. The smell of blood clung to the inside of her nose. Elric was here. Somehow he’d found her again, even through the Veil’s clever folds. Even through her careful hiding.
But she wasn’t the same girl who’d fled him in the middle of the night, spellbook clutched to her chest, her magic raw and gasping. Hollow Oak had changed her. The forest knew her name now. So did the Veil.
And she wasn’t alone. Not truly.
Even if Callum stood behind his wall, even if he kept himself steady and silent like the guardian he was—she knew where she could go.
She looked down the trail, heart heavy but steady.
Miriam would know what to do.
The older woman had been quiet when Cora first confessed everything back at the Hearth & Hollow Inn, not with judgment, but with that look she had, like she was already fitting the pieces together in her head. Like she understood the way blood could become a tether. Or a weapon.
If anyone in Hollow Oak had wisdom beyond spells and council decisions, it was Miriam Caldwell.
Cora headed for the trail, hand tightening around the strap of her satchel. The forest watched her as she walked, but its hush felt different now. Less threatening. More like it waited for her to make her move.
She didn’t look back toward Callum’s cabin, though every step tugged her chest in that direction.
She’d made her choice.
Handle this herself.
Because even if she was starting to fall for Callum,especiallyif she was falling for him, love didn’t mean running to someone the minute the sky cracked. Love meant knowing when to stand up on your own.
And damn it, she was going to.
22
CALLUM
Callum felt the wrongness before sunrise.
The Veil usually greeted him like an old friend when he left the cabin, a steady hum under his boots and pine on his tongue. This morning it buzzed like a hive poked with a stick. Vines along the trail twitched, jittery. Crows launched from the trees in a ragged flock, calling sharp warnings he could not translate.
He rolled his shoulders, trying to shake the unease, then followed routine anyway. He checked ward stones, listened for cracks in the hush, let lion senses scan for threats, yet the feeling clung, a burr under his skin.
By mid-morning he turned toward town, telling himself hot coffee at the Griddle & Grind would clear his head. The square bustled, witches haggling over herbs, shifter kids racing around the fountain, but the air still felt off.
Twyla’s bell jingled the moment he pushed through the door. The sweet smell of cardamom scones wrapped around him. He lifted a hand in greeting, but Twyla barely glanced his way as she hustled Miriam Caldwell toward the back room.
“Stay calm and think,” Twyla whispered, voice urgent.
“I told her to breathe, child,” Miriam answered, worry making the words brittle.
Door clicked shut. Curiosity spiked hard. Twyla never shut him out, and Miriam only sounded brittle when someone she loved was hurting.
He moved to the counter, planted his palms. No one waited for service, so he leaned in and listened. Voices seeped through the thin wall.
