บททั้งหมดของ I Will Find You: บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

She had a blanket draped over the back of the couch, the kind that looks like someone’s grandmother taught someone’s granddaughter how to make it right. A stack of takeout menus, a notebook with a lemon on the cover, and the remote sat on the coffee table like artifacts from a comfortable culture.“Order now or later?” I asked. “I can be persuaded by anything that arrives in paper boxes.”“Let’s order first,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear in a way that was more practical than coy. “I won’t survive this movie on lemon bars alone. Chinese okay?”“It’s your religion,” I said, and earned a pleased noise I filed under yes, again. She dialed with the ease of a person who already had this plan in her bones before I asked my question upstairs. I loved her for that—having wants, voicing them, letting me meet them instead of guessing.She rattled off an order that sounded like comfort with a side of heat: steamed dumplings, fried rice, broccoli with garlic, General’s chicken

We spent the next hour in the gentle choreography of sick-day survival: a few more sips, a single cracker accepted like a summit treaty, peppermint refreshed, the fan on the noise machine clicked on to crowd favorite, curtains tilted to let in winter light without glare. I cleaned the bathroom without comment, because there are gifts you don’t wrap in words. I swapped her damp pillowcase with one from the closet and made a note to return tomorrow with laundry detergent if she’d let me. I texted Banks to log a sick day for “Ward” and to cover her emails so she wouldn’t feel like she’d abandoned a ship that sails fine without one sailor for a day.Around ten, after a brief, less dramatic return to the bathroom, her body decided to negotiate. The nausea backed down. The headache—the one that blooms behind the eyes on days like this—made a bid for center stage and then pouted when I turned the lights lower. She lay on her side, facing the back of the couch, one hand curled under her jaw l

HollandThe apartment had slipped into evening almost without asking me. The sky outside the balcony was that city blue that only happens in winter, the river a darker ribbon beyond the line of bare trees. I’d dozed, read three chapters, dozed again. My stomach had promoted itself from villain to grumbly extra; the peppermint aftertaste had finally left. I was halfway through pouring broth back into a mug when my phone lit the coffee table.Remy.Right on the dot, like he said he would. I wiped my hand on the lemon-print pajama top—ridiculous and perfect—picked up, and tried to sound like a person and not a girl caught smiling at her screen.“Hey,” I said.“Hey,” he echoed, that low, careful voice that makes a room feel bigger. “Checking in. How’s the stomach? How’s the world?”“Offended but cooperative,” I admitted. “Soup triumphed. Lemon bar medicine may have been taken in a second dose.” I eyed the incriminating box. “I would apologize but I’m not sorry.”A quiet laugh rolled throu

RemyJacek thinks he’s subtle.He’s not. He’s a six-foot-two neon sign disguised as a Beta, waltzing into my office with a “quick update,” dropping feast tomorrow; you should come, Holland like a card he didn’t just pull from up his sleeve, and winking at me on the way out as if the entire performance hadn’t been visible from the moon.And still—when Holland said yes, my lungs forgot their job.It was a small yes, gentle as a door swinging on a well-oiled hinge. Not the panicked okay of a woman trying to avoid disappointing anyone, not the deferential if you think I should, but a clean I’d love to come. It landed in my chest with a weight I didn’t know I was built to carry. Pierce, who had bristled when Jacek started meddling, licked his chops and promptly forgave him.We go, he said, smug. We bring her home. We feed her.“Slowly,” I reminded him and myself. “On her terms.”We can like the same thing, my wolf replied, and for once, we did.I don’t mind pacing. Slowness is a kind of st

RemyThe room had just narrowed to the length of Holland’s breath and the warm line of my hand at her back when the front door announced trouble like a trumpet.“Oh, Remy, you look just as dashing as last I saw you!”The music didn’t stop so much as stagger. Conversations hiccuped, then tried to carry on. I closed my eyes for a beat—one beat—long enough to put the wolf back behind his better instincts and give the man the wheel.I turned with Holland still in my arm. She tightened—just a fraction—but I felt it like a struck wire. Her scent shifted: heat, salt, the clean, bright edge that meant anger had found her, and behind it a sharper note she didn’t try to hide—jealousy flaring because the bond is honest with or without your permission.Angel stood in the foyer as if the house had been built for her entrance—high heels, winter-white dress meant for a warmer month, hair like a weapon, perfume designed to colonize air not already occupied. She moved with that smile—the one that alwa