Page 48 of In Her Own Rite

“He can smell her on you,” Lena says.

My breath clouds before me as I reach for my protective vest and undo the straps. As my hands fumble together, I feel the hair tie Em gave me. Wait—is that how he found me? Could he smell her on me somehow, when I came up to the ring? No, that doesn’t make sense—

“No,” Lena says. “Not from your clothing. Because you’re her mate.”

Her words catch me off-guard, and I fumble as I finally get the vest off. Which parts of this are real? Which parts am I supposed to believe?

“You know that, don’t you?” she asks. “Deep down.”

“I don’t— I don’t know,” I stammer. Don’t I?

“I know you love her,” she says, and her voice is sad. “But you can’t protect her from what’s going to happen. You can’t take her destiny from her.”

“What do you mean?”

The lights grow brighter, more vibrant. Suddenly she swirls through the air, flowing around me and then appearing behind my body. Her voice is rushed and serious in my ear.

“He’s here, Kieran,” she says. “And hewillfind her.”

And then he lunges for me again.

17

EMERSON

We spend the rest of the day in bed. Kieran makes me come four, five times, until my knees are weak and my legs are shaky. He tells me he loves me, again and again: in my hair, against my neck, kissing his way down my stomach. In the evening he insists on making me dinner, and this time I let him. I sit on the kitchen counter across from the island, sketching him as he works his way through a recipe Gabe sent over. That night, we go to sleep in his bed, and when I wake up in the morning he’s still there, his arms wrapped around me.

Mine. And I’m his.

I turn to face him, admiring his nose, the freckles over his face, the cut of his jaw. Kieran’s fully Fakari, but like me, he’s fairer in coloring than Seb or Gabe. The thing that gives it away are his broad, blunt cheekbones and the golden ring in his eyes, a sign of the wolf buried within.

I climb out of bed, not wanting to wake him, and slip into the bathroom to wash my face. Standing in front of the mirror, I take in my own eyes, dark gray-blue. They have an amber ring, too, but it’s thin and faded, barely perceptible anymore after all these years of keeping my wolf hidden away.

As I wash my face, I think of Maren, who spent years unknowingly suppressing her wolf with creams, pills, and tonics before she came to the Fakaris. When I met her, her eyes were a rich, warm brown, but nothing indicated she might be a shifter. Once her wolf finally came to the surface—and especially after she spent months learning to work with her inner wolf with Seb—it was like her whole face changed. She glows now. As though the gold that brought its way to her eyes also wove its way into her skin, her posture, her bearing.

I straighten from over the sink and pick up a towel to dry my face. As I do, I look in the mirror, wondering. What would I look like, if I let my wolf in? Would I glow, too?

But then, in an instant, I remember how it felt to be trapped in my own skin: even smaller than I am now, but not able to speak or defend myself. How it felt to slip into a version of myself without wanting to, whenever a strong enough emotion overtook me. Thrashing against my own body, trying to take control of a part of me that felt uncontrollable.

No. It’s better this way.

I slip out of the bathroom and walk down the hall to the blue room, where my bags are. I change out of my pajamas, into dark jeans and a blue-and-white striped shirt. It’s cold outside, so I add my warm yellow knit sweater on top, a Karstmis gift from Saga a few years ago.

I look out of the window at the sea below. The sun is just beginning to rise, painting the sky pink and amber. Kieran probably won’t be up for another hour, and I’m dying to tell Maren what happened yesterday. I rummage through my duffle bag and find my phone, putting it into my back pocket. I’ll take a short walk and be back before he wakes up.

Once downstairs, I lace up my boots and grab my coat to head out of the door. There’s a thick blanket of snow on the ground—the snowfall yesterday didn’t stop until the evening, and now the earth is coated in it, muting everything. I’ll walk along the beach, I decide. Kieran won’t be happy that I’m out by myself, but it’s not his decision. And at least this way I’ll be in an area I know.

I make my way down the hill and towards the shore, where a strip of sand is visible between the blanket of snow and the icy blue sea. I pull my phone from my back pocket and open the app Maren and I use for audio messages.

“Heij,” I say after hitting record, and my voice is still groggy from sleep. “I hope your product launch is going well, and that you’re not too freaked out after what happened yesterday. I have so much to tell you. You won’t believe what happened with Kieran. Or, well, maybe you will, but I still don’t…”

I tell her about the argument we had in the morning and our conversation in the woods later that day. That he took me home and we spent all day in bed together.

“I can’t believe it,” I say, looking up at the sky. I’m nearing the edge of the beach now, where the sand of the shore starts to turn into forest. “I think this isreal. Like maybe this is really it, you know? We finally found our way—”

I stop, seeing something between the trees. It can’t be.

“Hang on,” I say, walking closer. But I see the shape again.

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