Page 20 of Mane Squeeze
“It’s a seer’s altar,” she said. “Hazel used to bring me here when I was little. Said the veil thins on moonlight like this. That sometimes, if you ask gently, the forest answers.”
“You gonna ask it?”
She paused. “I think it already did.”
He crouched beside her, forearms resting on his knees. Close. Not touching.
“What if it’s right?” he asked, voice quiet. “What if this isn’t a curse?”
She turned to him. “You want it to be real?”
His eyes met hers. “I want to know whatyouwant.”
That threw her. She blinked, unsure what to say.
She wanted answers. She wanted peace. She wanted him to stop looking at her like she was something soft. Something his lion could curl around and keep.
She didn’t want to admit how much she liked that look.
Suddenly, a breeze stirred the clearing. Petals—not from any tree she recognized—spun through the air and landed at her feet.
Pink. Soft. Glowing faintly.
Dominic plucked one off her shoulder. “This feel like a curse to you?”
She took it from him slowly. “It feels like a trap.”
He tilted his head. “Not every trap is a bad one.”
Their eyes locked again.
The pull between them wasn’t just magical anymore. It was them. The way his voice lowered when he asked questions that mattered. The way her name softened on his tongue now, not a curse but something close to curiosity.
He was arrogant, and reckless, and too smooth for his own good. But he was here. Walking the woods. Listening to the trees.
And she was letting him.
They didn’t kiss. Not this time. But she didn’t step away either.
And when they left the clearing, their steps matched. Like they’d done this before, lifetimes ago, and were just remembering how.
9
DOMINIC
Dominic wasn’t one for self-reflection.
It got messy, always led to places he didn’t want to linger—like memories of betrayal, or that tight space under his ribs that hadn’t stopped aching since the bond formed. He preferred action. Punching something, shifting, running through the trees at night. Anything but feelings.
But now, with Lillith barely thirty feet ahead, weaving through the lantern-lit stacks ofPines & Needles, and the ghost of her laughter still caught on the edge of his hearing, he was drowning in feelings.
It was their second visit to the shop that week. Celestial Pines might’ve been built on magic and moonlight, but it ran on gossip and rituals. The only place to get both in equal measure was Markus and Rowan’s bookstore. Tonight, it was mostly empty, save for a few enchanted broomsticks that sorted scrolls along the top shelves.
“Dom, come on,” Lillith called without turning. “We don’t have all night.”
He watched her move—sharp angles softened by the lazy sway of her hips. Goddess help him, he was falling.
And he didn’t fall.
