Maybe it was his own secrets that made him capable of such patience, such unexpected empathy. I didn’t know. But I was grateful. Grateful yet still certain I could no longer wait. I wanted him to know all of me, and that was only possible if I was honest about what and who I’d run from.

Perhaps we’d stand a chance at making this impossible bond grow into something truly attainable if he knew why it was all so difficult.

Tomorrow, I vowed silently.

“One more night,” I murmured while he filled the kitchen sink with soapy water.

Scythe froze.

A moment later, he tossed me a smirk over his shoulder. He shook his head and scrubbed the pot when I smiled at him. “As many as you need, wildflower.”

While he cleaned up, I drew a bath.

Scythe built a fire before he rid himself of his clothing while I peeled my ruined gown from my body. He helped me into the tub to sit atop him. I splayed my hands over his chest, sliding them to his shoulders. “You can wield fire.”

He did his best to keep from reacting to my statement, but I still saw it—the slight thinning of his luscious mouth.

“The fire,” I said. “Every time, you’ve lit it yourself.”

“Been watching me closely, wildflower?”

I grinned.

His mouth curled. “It’s not something I flash around often,” he said. “It’s not an ability I believe I should have for though it’s sometimes useful, I don’t need it.”

“Yet you do have it.” I traced his collarbone. “Was one of your parents a wielder of flame?”

“My father,” he admitted, and just those two rough and quick words were enough to feel like I’d earned a small victory. A part of me wondered if I could dish out morsels of myself in the same careful way. In a way that wouldn’t alarm so much as it would invite curiosity to know more.

I refrained from snorting at the mere thought of casually mentioning anything I had yet to tell him. Ignoring the fear cooling my chest, I said what I’d already assumed to be true, “Your father was of alpha blood.”

He nodded, and I sensed that was all I would get for now.

Though I longed to discover what had happened to his parents, to him, and to know why he’d ended up with Mariana and Berk, I let it be.

He would tell me in his own time, which he confirmed with a reassuring gloss of his fingers over my jawline.

My heart and lashes fluttered. “Did you mean what you said? About not going anywhere.”

“I mean everything I say, even when I’m an angry wolf.”

I rubbed his hair-dusted pectorals and smiled.

He tipped up my chin. “I like the way you give my heart warning.”

“Warning?”