Chapter 82

Kade

We walked back through the eastern woods a little after sunrise, and I felt every step Abby took.

Not her feet on the path. Her.

The bond sat in my chest like a second heartbeat. When she stepped over a root and her sore legs complained, I felt the small flare of it. When a jay screamed at us from a branch and she laughed, the laugh went through me before I heard it. When the roofs of the packhouse came into view between the trees, something tightened in her, quick and bright and nervous, and Knox lifted his head inside me to see what was wrong.

Nothing was wrong.

She was embarrassed.

I looked down at her. She had pulled her hair forward over one shoulder and kept tugging at it, arranging it over the side of her neck. The scarf I had wrapped aroun