Chapter 69

That day the attic felt a little brighter than usual, though the sky outside was still a pale winter grey. Maybe it was only because the light had changed. Most of the snow beyond the narrow window had melted, exposing the darker ground beneath. Winter was slowly loosening its grip on the valley, although not easily. The cold still lived in the walls and under the floorboards and in the old brass telescope by the attic window.

Ethan was sitting on the floor when I came in, one arm resting on his bent knee with his sleeve rolled halfway to his elbow, his head turned sideways and tilted slightly upward as if he never stopped listening to his surroundings. His eyes shot toward me the moment the door clicked shut behind my back. Something in me settled, warm and content. That still caught me off guard sometimes, but less and less with each passing day. I had even begun anticipating it every time we were supposed to meet. It was like my mind had linked the feeling of warmth and security with being around Ethan and filed it under normal.

I crossed the dusty floor and dropped down beside him. He studied my face for half a second.

"Something is troubling you. Spill."

I leaned my back against the wall and let out a long breath. "I don't know how much longer we can keep doing this before someone catches us."

His expression didn't change, but his body tensed. "What happened?"

For one second, I thought of the other things too. The drawing. The broken pencils. The textbook. The gum. Small things. Stupid things. Things that should not have mattered enough to name, especially not to him, not when I knew exactly what his face would do if I named them.

So I chose the safer truth.

"Nothing," I said quickly. "Not exactly. I was just in the bathroom, washing up, you know, after, and a group of girls came in."

His whole body locked. I glanced at him.

"They didn't see me. I hid in a stall and stood on the toilet so they wouldn't spot my shoes under the door."

His eyes narrowed. "Kelse."

"What was I supposed to do? Wave?"

That got the faintest movement at the corner of his mouth, but it vanished almost immediately.

"What did they say?"

I picked at a loose flake of old paint on the floorboards. "They mentioned that the boys are calmer. That the whole craziness is apparently over. That you're back to being yourself." I swallowed. "And one of them said I smelled... different."

The last word sat strangely in the room. Ethan looked at me with the focused stillness I had learned to associate with lupines. My throat tightened in spite of myself.

"I've asked my folks back home but they said they couldn't tell. Because I'm related to them or something." I swallowed. "Do I smell different to you?"

He did not answer at once. He leaned toward me just a bit, waited a second like always, and when I didn't move away, he closed the space between us so fully that the tip of his nose tickled the sensitive spot beneath my ear. My skin prickled and my pulse beat hard at the contact.

"Hmm," he murmured against my neck. The tip of his nose drew a small circle on my skin, sending goosebumps all over my body. "You smell like you. Only..." He took one deep breath, then released it with a low vibrating noise that sounded like something between a quiet moan and a growl. It made my whole body shiver.

Still, I made myself draw back an inch. "Only what?"

He frowned a little, as if he was searching for words. "I don't know how to explain it. It's not like you smell different to me, it's more like... It feels different." He paused. "Before the forest, your scent was my ache and my balm. But now..." A smile swept over his face like a breeze. "It's just with me. Wherever I am, it's with me." He traced the lines of my face with gentle fingers. "You're with me."

I didn't know what to say to that. I wasn't sure there were words for what it did to me, hearing him say it like that—like it was simply a fact, like the changing of seasons.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. I could barely focus on his words because my whole body seemed to melt beneath his warmth. And then he pulled away, and the cold rushed in. He caught my gaze and held it. His smile faded, leaving only traces in the corners of his eyes.

"Did they mention anything else?"

My throat went dry. "Yeah, um... They mentioned something about marking and how if you did that stuff, Lara would have to react or something."

Once again Ethan went very still, but now this stillness had edges.

"Ethan..." I muttered. "What does it mean?"

His jaw worked once. For a moment I thought he might not answer. Then he said, "A mark is scent, but not only that."

"I'm not following."

"Marking is a declaration of intent," he said quietly. "Enough of a male's scent on someone that no one can pretend it was accidental." His throat worked. "In our world, it's similar to an engagement ring."

The explanation hit me. "Engagement? Why would anyone assume you would want to marry me? We're not even officially together. And we're not even eighteen yet, or at least I'm not, and you're barely, not that it matters..."

"Kelse. Kelsey." He faced me fully. "Hey. Breathe. No one is talking about marriage, okay?"

I nodded. "Then why did they..."

"Because it's a lupine thing and they don't know any better," he replied, his tone slightly annoyed. "Regardless, scent marking is serious business that I don't intend to put into practice. At least not anytime soon."

I swallowed and looked at the floor. If we put the whole marriage thing aside, the core idea was actually romantic. But I knew enough of the lupine customs to know they came with blades instead of bows.

"Because you don't want to, or because Lara would go berserk?" I hated that my voice came out weaker than I intended.

"Because it would put you in danger." He sighed. "Because if I marked you, every female who thinks she can stake a claim to me would recognize it as a challenge, and I don't want to risk that. I don't want to risk you."

For a moment the attic seemed to shrink around us, the dust, the cracked walls, the narrow window, all of it suddenly too small for what we were talking about.

I stared at him. "A challenge? Are you mental? I can't fight a lupine. That's insane!"

His jaw worked. "Of course you can't. And you won't have to, I promise."

I cracked a laugh because the whole thing was as absurd as it was terrifying.

His mouth tightened. "Kelsey."

"No, it's fine." I patted his knee. "Fine. Very romantic. Dinner, movie, threat of ritualized female violence." I huffed. "No, scrap that. It's all that, except a dinner and a movie."

The corner of his mouth moved once, but the look in his eyes stayed dark.

"Kelsey," he repeated, firmly this time, colder.

Laughter died in my throat. He caught my hand and interlaced our fingers without ever taking his gaze off me. The warmth of him sank into my skin immediately.

"You don't have to worry about it. It's not going to happen."

The fingers of my free hand curled around the hem of my sweater. "Are you sure about that?"

For the first time, he didn't answer quickly enough.

A drop of thawed snow slid down the window in a trembling line before breaking apart. Somewhere lower in the building, muffled through walls and floorboards, came the long hum of students moving between lunch tables and corridors, one big body of noise too far away to feel real up here.

I turned my head toward him. "Ethan."

His eyes came back to mine.

"Look... As much as I like this place and its dusty Victorian charm, someone is bound to find out if we keep coming back here regularly."

He seemed to consider my words. "I know," he said grimly. "I've been thinking about alternatives, but with the cold and the snow there weren't many. Did you have anything in mind?"

"The old spring," I said, too fast. "You know, the boundary. The place that's off limits most of the year."

He looked at me, and something about him seemed to soften. For a second I almost smiled, because that look on his face told me what I had half hoped and half suspected already.

"You were thinking about it too," I said.

He didn't answer right away. Instead he asked, very quietly, "How do you know about that place?"

"Jack told me. Believe it or not."

That did get a reaction out of him. Nothing much, just a small twitch of his lips. "That's... strange."

His gaze flicked away for one second, then back.

"Strange or not, is it true?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yes." The word came slowly, like he was still fitting it into place. Then he added, "I thought about it. More than once." His mouth tightened a little. "But it was still winter. And also..." He stopped, watching me closely before continuing in a lower voice, "I didn't know if you'd ever want to set foot in the woods with me again."

Something inside me hurt at how carefully he said it. I looked down at my hands.

"I do." The words came out quieter than I intended. So I repeated them, more certain. "I do, Ethan."

He didn't move. Only his eyes seemed to shine a little brighter. I forced myself to go on.

"I know I can't..." I searched for the words. "I know there are parts of your world I can never join." I lifted my eyes to his again. "But I still want to be part of it as much as I can."

His expression shifted. The hard steadiness in him loosened, letting something raw and unguarded flicker for a second. The sight almost made me want to look away out of sheer tenderness. Instead I held his gaze.

He turned my hand palm-up in his. "Now I'll have to find a way to give you a dinner and a movie," he said.

I blinked. Then I laughed. The sound came out softer than I expected, not really because it was funny, but because hearing him try to fit himself into human courtship on purpose, for me, for us, did something helpless to my heart.

"Don't forget the flowers," I said.

A faint, playful smile touched his mouth. "Now, don't be greedy."

He drew my hand a little closer and looked down at our fingers, at the way his larger hand almost swallowed mine. The light through the window caught in the dust between us. Without words he drew me closer and ran the tip of his nose slowly through my hair, down the side of my neck, while his hands traced my shoulders and my back with that careful, deliberate slowness that always undid me completely. The pull between us deepened until I couldn't bear it anymore and kissed him. He made a low sound against my mouth, surprised and then not, and then the attic ceased to exist.

The attic held us, silent and without judgement, until, finally, the bell rang.

We both froze. The sound came up through the floor in a harsh metallic ripple that shattered the hush around us and dragged reality right back in by the throat. We had overstayed.

I shut my eyes briefly. "Right," I muttered.

Ethan did not move away immediately. Neither did I. When he finally drew back, it was with obvious reluctance.

"I'll walk the corridor first," he said. "Give it a minute before you leave."

I nodded.

He stood and held out a hand to pull me up. I took it.

"Kelsey." The softness came back into his eyes for only a second. "Spring will come soon."

It was not about the weather. I nodded.

"I know."

He touched my cheek once, quickly, then stepped toward the door.

I caught his wrist before he could open it. He looked back.

"Don't forget the flowers," I repeated.

The answering look on his face stayed with me long after he slipped into the hall and left me alone in the cold attic with my heartbeat still too fast and the first real shape of spring, and whatever it would mean for us, beginning to gather just beyond the walls.