Page 102 of Rocky Top

“I was so scared,”she whispered. “When I saw you go down… I thought—I thought you were gone.”

“I ain’t that easy to kill,” I muttered, buryin’ my face in her hair.

Her voice cracked. “I felt it… when I changed. Like somethin’ cracked open inside me. And once it was out, I didn’t know how to put it back.”

I pulled back enough to look her in the eye. “You ain’t broken, Birdie. That wasn’t the wolf takin’ over. That was you. The strongest damn woman I’ve ever known. And now the world knows it too.”

She swallowed hard. “I tracked them, Rocky. I smelled Emma. I ran. I didn’t even think. My body just knew.”

I nodded, cuppin’ her cheek. “That’s instinct. It’s part of the bond now. You felt me. You felt her. That’s real.”

Tears welled again. “But it was more than that. I saw her, in a shed, tied to a chair. I knew they wanted her blood. But we found her before the worst happened. It was if I saw the future.”

“That’s not exactly normal. But not unheard of.”

“What if I can’t go back to normal? What if I’m never…”

“You won’t be,” I said. “But you’ll be somethin’ more.”

She kissed me then, hard and desperate, like she needed to feel me to believe I was real. I kissed her back, pain forgotten, hand fistedin her hair.

When she pulled back, her eyes were glassy. “I thought I was scared of what I was becoming. But I think what scares me more is losing you.”

“You ain’t gonna lose me,” I promised. “I’m yours. Long as you’ll have me.”

Knox came in the next morning, lookin’ like he hadn’t slept either. He set a bag of clean clothes on the chair and passed me a file.

“Flint’s dead. TNT found him. He wasn’t human anymore. Necromancer got a hold of him, made him somethin’ else.”

“Fuck,” I muttered.

“You saved Emma. That’s what matters.”

I looked at Birdie, who hadn’t left my side. “She did most of the savin’.”

Knox looked at her, then back at me. “She yours now?”

I didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah. She’s mine.”

Back at the clubhouse two days later, word had spread.

The traitor. The kidnap. The fight. Birdie.

They looked at her different now. Not like an outsider. Like one of us.

Eliza hugged her so tight I thought they might cry again. Emma gave her a flower she’d picked from the parking lot.

And the brothers? They nodded in quiet respect.

We were sittin’ by the fire that night, my stitches itchin’ and my arm around Birdie, when she leaned in and said softly, “I don’t know what’s gonna happen next.”

I pulled her close. “Don’t gotta know. We face it together.”

She turned to me, her lips brushing my ear. “I still feel you… even when you’re not near. It’s like you’re inside me now.”

I groaned low, feelin’ the wolf stir.

“That’s the bond, sweetheart. And it only gets stronger.”

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