Wyatt was to her in an instant, hugging her so tight it was hard to breathe, and she didn’t even care about the discomfort. This right here, this moment, was the first thing that had felt real since the day he’d left.
“It wasn’t your fault. You did everything right. She just wasn’t meant to be ours, Harper. God needed her more.”
A pained keening sound wrenched up her throat as she clutched onto his shirt and dampened the fabric with her tears. “That’s all I needed to hear. That’s all. This whole time, that’s all I needed to hear from you.”
Hugging her tighter, Wyatt’s shoulders shook, and his breath hitched. His unshaven jaw rasped roughly against her cheek as he gave her the affection she’d pined for. The affection bear shifters gave better than any other shifter. He switched sides and ran his cheek across her other one.
Wyatt gripped the back of her head and pulled her face against his strong chest. And when he lowered his lips to her ear, he whispered salvation. “We’ve both punished ourselves for long enough. It’s through.”
It’s through. Harper wrapped her arms around his neck and allowed him to pull her up off the ground. His words had blasted apart the big red ball of ache in her middle. She huffed a thick laugh at how relieved she felt. This…this was like flying. It was like cinder blocks being cut from her ankles and breaking the surface of the water. It was breathing again.
She closed her eyes tightly and stroked the back of his head as her dragon let off a long, relieved rattle. One day with him, and she was practically purring. Did her forgiveness make her weak? She didn’t know. All she knew is that she’d bonded with Wyatt when she was young, and the tension of that bond had never gone away. She used to hate her dragon for holding onto him so tightly, but now Harper had to trust her. She had to. For whatever time she had left, she wanted to be happy.
And no person on the planet had ever, or would ever, make her happier than Wyatt.
Chapter Six
Wyatt slammed the ax down on another log and shoved the split pieces into the pile next to the chopping block.
He was smiling like a dope, but that couldn’t be helped. Harper was back in his life.
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t his, never would be again and not like he wished, but at least they would get through the grit from the past. At least they could forgive each other and themselves, and right about now, it felt like a billion pounds of dead weight had lifted off his shoulders. Damn. He sucked in an easy drag of air. He couldn’t even remember feeling this free.
Chop.
So now the real work would begin. She’d scared him with that seizure, and from what Damon said, it would only get worse if she didn’t connect with something big. He had to push hard and find her dragon something to tether her to this world.
Chop.
Too bad he was about a hundred thousand dollars short. He squinted up at the mountains in the distance. His plan wouldn’t have ever worked. Not at the pace he was earning money. He had shifts up at the gem mine, excavating dirt for tourists. It paid pretty well, and he’d been saving like mad for the past three years. From the second Damon had called him about Harper’s first bout of sickness, he’d gone to work, but he hadn’t realized she was this deep into The Unrest already.
Harper’s bloody nose meant she was nearing her end and Wyatt’s timeline had just been blown to hell.
Chop.
His funds from the coven had been cut off completely with the stunt he’d pulled last night. Arabella had tried for a more intimate approach to bleeding him, and he’d lost his mind and tried his damndest to put the leg of the kitchen chair through her chest cavity. He’d been making a thousand dollars a blood donation, but now he was back to only paychecks from the mine. It wasn’t enough.
He lifted the ax to slam it back down onto the log he’d balanced on the block, but he paused as the throaty rumble of an engine rattled to him on the breeze.
Harper’s silver rental car sat in his yard. It was broad daylight so the vamps were down in their dark basements. The only other person who’d ever come visit him here was Kane, but only once. They weren’t the sitting-on-the-porch-drinking-lemonade type of friends. More like two predators living in the same territory who respected each other’s boundaries. So who the fuck was driving the beefed-up, glossy black motorcycle up his gravel drive right now?
A tall man pulled the bike into Wyatt’s yard and cut the engine, hit the kickstand with his giant black boot, and pulled his helmet and sunglasses off.
“Holy shit. Aaron?” He hadn’t seen Aaron Keller in years.
Aaron gave him a toothy grin and nodded like hell-yeah. He got off the bike and caught Wyatt’s hug. Aaron clapped him on the back hard enough to shake his lungs loose, and Wyatt got overwhelmed with emotion. God, his bear had been falling apart since Harper had barreled back into his life last night. He gripped Aaron’s navy sweater and opened his mouth to apologize for the scent of sadness he was putting off right now. But Aaron rested his forehead on top of Wyatt’s shoulder and gripped the back of his head. He just stood there like that, embracing him like they used to when they were boys and hadn’t seen each other in too damn long.
Wyatt inhaled sharply, trying to keep his shit together, but truth be told, his bear needed this. He needed touch, and Wyatt had been stupid to deprive his animal side of comradery for all this time. Wyatt leaned his cheek against Aaron’s head and just was.
“I missed you, man,” Aaron murmured. “You didn’t just leave her. You left me, too.”