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Luna raised her eyebrows expectantly. She smelled like old sweat and bug cream, and Oliver wanted to lick her until she smelled like him.

Not that it mattered. She had a life to get back to, and Oliver couldn’t lie here forever.

“Nothing,” Oliver said finally. “I’m getting up.”

Luna blinked. For a second, he thought he caught disappointment flash over her face. Then it was gone, and Luna let out a triumphant cry, pointing at a far corner of the cave.

“My shirt!”

Hiking went a lot faster when you didn’t have a werewolf with a brokenfoot.

Oliver expected they’d keep walking to find a higher point where flowers were more common and easier to get. But Luna stopped at the edge of the cliff, staring at the flower growing across the gap.

“Hear me out,” she said as Oliver headed back to her. “You put me on your shoulders and I, like,lean.”

He made a face.

“Come on!” She pouted, holding up her boots. “I don’t want to walk another two hours up, and then, what—five hours down? I want to get this over with already! Put me on your shoulders and don’t drop me. What is your superstrength evenforif not to lift hot women?”

Oliver thought about bringing up that time he fucked her up against a wall. Then he knelt expectantly.

“Fine,” he said. “Hop on.”

For a second, there was nothing. He heard her breath hitch.

He started to look up, but she was already behind him, hooking a leg over one of his shoulders. Then the other.

He stood slowly. Luna let out a tiny trill, arms out.

“Tense your core,” he reminded her.

“No shit,” she told him. She giggled. “I think this can actually work. Let’s do this!”

He stepped up to the edge of the cliff and bent over, keeping an eye on her as she stretched into the empty space he’d fallen into. He eyed the steep drop. He’d gotten off lucky with just a broken ankle. What would happentoherif she fell?

His hands tightened on her legs. They’d never find out.

“Little more,” she said, strained. “Little… bit…yes!”

He looked up to find her wagging a flower in his face. Before yesterday, he’d only seen it in wedding photos and the occasional sketch in one of Grandmother’s dusty old books: a cluster of white petals with a blood-red center.

He walked them away from the edge and dropped to his knees. She climbed off him and jumped triumphantly.

“We did it! Breakup flower, you’re beautiful!” She smacked a kiss to its many petals, shaking it in victory.

“Careful,” he reminded her.

“Oh. Right.” She stilled, holding the flower out expectantly.

He took it. For a moment, he felt a strange swooping sensation, like all his younger years were tunneling into this one: he hadn’t expected to hold one of these for a long time.Maybeon his wedding day. More likely when he was an elder and it was his responsibility to make the sacred nectar for his pack. Grandmother Musgrove was still yet to teach him.

Then the feeling was gone. He tucked the flower carefully into the side pocket of his backpack, next to the water bottle.

“Mission accomplished,” Luna said. She looked oddly flustered, a blush breaking out over her tanned face. “So… homeward bound?”

“Homeward bound,” he agreed.

He waited for her to start down the path. But she juststood there, staring at him. If she were anyone else, he would say she looked shy.