His lips hitched as the weight of those first two words registered, but he didn’t emphasize them, which helped ease my knotted gut. Thanks were favors owed, and I had just granted him a boon.

“You’re welcome.” An odd softening I had never heard in his voice lifted my head in time to capture his gaze as he added, “No thanks necessary.”

Eager as I was to start exploring, right now a wall of bare man-chest blocked my line of sight.

The view didn’t offend me as much as it might have once.

Graeson wrapped his wide palm around my neck and anchored me a scant inch from him. He didn’t put his other arm around me, but he did dip his head and inhale the scent of my skin. I saw when chill bumps raised hairs down his arms and heard the low sound he made in the back of his throat.

For a second I had forgotten what this stolen moment forced me to remember. The rush of waking in a strange place had stunned me, but it was coming back to me how Graeson and I hadn’t parted on good terms. The last I saw of him he was still a wolf, and I had snapped at him. This Graeson was all warm skin and…naked man.

“Are you okay?” I whispered, unsure why I was being quiet except it felt right.

“I am now.” He pressed his lips against my temple, and my eyes closed. “I was…lost…there for a while.”

I nodded, a jerky motion that tipped me forward. I dared to press my hands against his hard chest to steady myself. No. That was a lie. My palms itched with the need to smooth his contours and reassure myself he was here, whole. This place…it had been a home, but it had been the lair of a monster too, and it might have been the last place his sister was alive.

If I could have bound his head in bubble wrap to preserve his fragile mental state, I would have.

“We have to find Harlow.” I stepped back, severing that timid physical connection. “I can go alone if…” If it was too much to risk what he might find.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He clasped my hand and speared his fingers between mine. “You tend to almost drown when I’m not around, and I’d prefer to be the only one giving you mouth-to-mouth.”

A flush stole up my neck that sizzled in my cheeks. “Okay,” I croaked, unsure what to do with my hand now that he held it. My elbow locked, my arm as foreign as a wooden plank sticking out of the sleeve of my shirt.

Comfortable with touch the way all wargs were, Graeson squeezed his fist and sent reassurance flooding through me until I seemed made of flesh and bone after all.