“Really, they’re the victims here.”
“You are so right. Better say it a bit louder, the aunties will love you forever.” She pulled his head down and snuck a kiss that drove the last of the strain of the previous few days from his shoulders. “What about your family? Not Parker. Your pack back in Pine Valley.”
“They’re not my pack anymore, remember?” he reminded her with a fond grimace. “You took care of that.”
They walked deeper into the trees together, picking their way over frozen leaf litter and tough, winding roots. The tree ferns and palm-like plants looked more exotic the longer Fleance looked at them, and he couldn’t help but wonder aloud what they would look like in the summer.
“Very green,” Sheena said flatly. “These ones have white flowers, but for the most part it’s just green, green, green. And—my bag!”
She dashed over to a bright blue backpack, which was lying abandoned at the base of one of the fern-like trees.
“I dropped it when I smelled the smoke…” She trailed off, frowning. “That feels like years ago, now.”
“You were planning a trip, weren’t you?”
“Huh! I was meant to fly out of here tomorrow evening. Still am, technically. Auckland to Honolulu to San Francisco, and then… wherever the road took me. Meaning wherever I ended up after my sheep does its thing.” She stared at her pack and nibbled on her lower lip. “You know, before I met you, I thought that once I found my mate everything would slot into place. I’d put down roots wherever I was and get stuck into the rest of my life. Which would mean right here, I guess.”
Right here? Fleance let the thought sink in. Then he looked up again, at the frozen forest that surrounded them, and let that sink in, too.
He’d barely had time to appreciate New Zealand as a place. His arrival and memory of everything from Auckland south was a blur, and if he’d thought about Rotorua at all, he’d thought it was a fittingly hellish backdrop to his mission. The sulfuric gases, boiling mud pits and steam gushing from natural vents at the sides of the roads had seemed eerily apt.
Now, though, he could see the beauty in it. This landscape was strange, almost alien, like the photos he’d seen of Yellowstone, but made stranger still by the unfamiliar trees and bushes and the birdsong that fluted from hidden branches. The landscape seemed new and somehow incredibly ancient at the same time, and somehow alive. It wasn’t monstrous, or some vision of hell. It was beautiful.
“I could see myself staying,” he said, pressing his lips against the top of Sheena’s head.
She stilled, then looked up at him. “What? Nah.”
“But you just said—”
“And what about your family? I know—” She waved away his objections. “—I know they’re not your pack anymore, but family doesn’t have to mean who’s related to you by blood, or by whatever we’re calling this hellhound stuff. Magic shit. It’s the people who are important to you. And you wouldn’t have come all this way to stop Parker from hurting everyone you left behind if they weren’t important to you.”
She’s right. For a moment, Fleance couldn’t find words. His face locked down, an automatic response in the face of uncertainty.
Then he realized he didn’t need words. He let everything he was feeling flood through the mate bond, and the only thing in the world shining brighter than his emotions were Sheena’s eyes.
“What about putting down roots?” he muttered. His voice seemed so inadequate compared to the twin suns of Sheena’s gaze.
She tipped her head back and narrowed her eyes mischievously. “What? Right here? With the other trees?” She smiled, wide and lazy and delighted. “I only said I thought I’d want to immediately put down roots. I don’t. I still want to go and see the world, and have adventures, and see what ridiculous trouble my hellsheep gets me into. I don’t just want to go on the trip of a lifetime, I want to have the life of a lifetime. With you.”
Fleance’s hellhound pricked its ears with excitement. Fleance’s face hurt, and it took him a moment to realize it was because he was smiling harder than he had in a long time.
“I’ve still got that plane ticket,” Sheena said.
“I can talk to the airline about bringing my return flight forward.”
“You can introduce me to your family. I want to meet them. And then…”
“Parker hurt a lot of people in a lot of places,” Fleance said gruffly.
“Then we’ll go to all those places.” Sheena pinched his chin and drew his face down to hers. “And we’ll make things right. For them, and for your hellhound.”
Fleance carried Sheena’s pack back to the house and waited while she rummaged through it for clothes that actually fit her. Sunset hit like a comet, roaring red and gold across the sky and falling into darkness and a bone-deep chill that had everyone except those with something to prove, or a house full of relatives to escape, huddling inside Fiona and Rena’s villa.
Outside, Sheena stretched her hands over the hot coals in the abandoned grill, soaking up the last of their warmth. Fleance wrapped his arms around her and frowned at the glowing coals. They pulsed, and new flames flickered up from them.
Sheena sighed contentedly. The sound went straight to Fleance’s heart and stuck there, like a dart made of pure light. “Ooh, that’s nice. I’ll keep you around.”
She relaxed into his arms. For a few minutes, there was nothing but the gentle hiss of the flames and the murmur of conversation from the house behind them.
Was it only a few weeks ago I was so worried about my hellhound’s behavior that I was jumping at my own shadow? Fleance tipped his head back and looked at the stars blazing in the night sky. Standing here, with his mate, that afternoon with Caine at the Puppy Express felt like a lifetime ago.
Just like his
