ANMELDENAvelin POVThe city looked different as I came back into it. Maybe I was different. Three days in the mountains had stripped away some protective layer I had been wearing for too long, and now the city felt less like a place I was surviving and more like a place I was returning to. The bus rolled through familiar streets while late afternoon light caught the tops of buildings in gold. I sat with Leander's shoulder against mine, his hand covering mine in my lap, and thought about my son waiting at the end of this road.Shen. He was three years old, already the most important person in any room he entered. I had been away for three days, but it felt like three weeks. I missed him. The particular ache of a parent separated from their child for the first time was hard to bear, and everything that had happened in the mountains made it worse. My mind was crowded with fragments, a rainstorm, and returning memories. I wanted to see him. I needed to see him.I also needed Shen to see his papa
Leander POVRenlo leaned against the opposite wall, his luggage slung over his shoulder. "You were in there all night."Avelin's face turned red. The flush started at his neck, where the crescent sat warm and visible, and moved upward past his cheeks with impressive speed. He opened his mouth, but nothing useful came out."Renlo—""Your scents are blended," Renlo said, his tone flat, like a man presenting evidence in a courtroom. "The bond marks are doing that thing they do. You are wearing his sweater. It smells like him, and you look like someone who finally slept properly for the first time in three years."Avelin closed his mouth, his face the color of something left in the sun. He turned sideways and pressed his face directly into my chest, both hands gripping the front of my jacket, hiding with the commitment of a person who had given up on dignity entirely. A muffled sound came from somewhere against my sternum. I chose to believe it was laughter.I wrapped an arm around his wa
Leander POVI woke before the sun finished rising, and the first thing I did was check that he was still there.Not because I doubted it. I knew he was there. The bond told me, warm and steady beneath my skin, the crescent mark at my neck pulsing with the certainty of something that had finally stopped searching. But I looked anyway, the way you look at things that matter most, not from fear, just from the need to confirm with my own eyes what my body already knew. Avelin was exactly where he had been when we fell asleep, face pressed against my shoulder, one hand fisted in the front of my sweater. Both arms wrapped around my side with a grip that even sleep had not loosened.Clingy. The word arrived with a warmth that hit deep in my chest. In Cliffhaven, he had been this way. Not in front of others, never loudly, but in the quiet spaces, in the dark of the place above the ocean, in the mornings before the inn woke up. He had always found some part of me to hold onto. I used to cover h
Leander POVThe room was quiet now. The storm has spent. The truth lay bare between us like a bridge finally crossed. Avelin’s story of our son, of Shen’s humming, his hands, the three years of mornings I’d missed, had carved a new chamber in my heart, one that ached with a fierce, possessive love.He fell silent, his head resting against my shoulder. I could feel the dampness of his lashes against my skin. The bond mark at the base of my neck was a steady, warm pulse, no longer a phantom limb but a live wire connecting me to him. The recognition was complete. I was Shen Ross or Leander Voss, and I was the man who had loved Avelin on a windswept pier. They were the same person. The relief of that truth was a physical uncoiling in my chest.I shifted, turning so I could see his face in the dim, pre-dawn light filtering through the window. I cradled his jaw, my thumb stroking over the high curve of his cheekbone. “Avelin.”He opened his eyes. They were deep, liquid pools holding galaxie
Avelin POVThe morning came quietly after the storm. Outside the resort windows, the mountain looked clean, with silver mist hanging between the trees. The pale sunlight shone over the pine forest. Everything felt softer and calmer today, like the world had taken a breath.For a moment, I forgot where I was. Then I remembered everything. The storm. The fragments. Leander falling to his knees. I remembered it all. Pain stabbed through my chest.I sat up quickly on the sofa, and the blanket slipped into my lap. My pulse was racing. My hands were shaking.Leander remembered. Not just instincts, but everything.Three years of grief, waiting, and surviving felt like they were cracking open inside me. I thought I might fall apart.The chair near the window creaked softly. I looked up. Leander was already awake. He sat facing the mountain with one arm resting against the chair beside him. The morning light touched his face. He was wearing a dark sweater and loose trousers. His damp hair from
Leander POV“You are safe."The storm raged outside. Rain pounded the windows while thunder rolled through the valleys beneath the resort. Avelin stood in front of me, his eyes shining with fear and fragile hope that looked ready to break with one wrong word.“I have got you," he whispered shakily.The wall shattered. Everything hit me at once.Three years of memories came crashing back so violently that it nearly knocked me to the floor. Rain, mud, and pain blurred together before the memory of the clinic hit me fully.Oh God. I saw the clinic clearly now, dim yellow lights glowing over blood soaking through my shirt, while antiseptic mixed with stormwater, and someone pressed hard against the wound in my side. It was Avelin, young and terrified, refusing to let go of me. “Stay with me," he pleaded desperately while my vision faded in and out. “Please stay awake."I remembered the warmth of his hands and the softness in his voice. He stayed beside a dying stranger because he could







