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Beryl peers at the lacerations Petra has only just begun to treat. “Sorry I couldn’t get there sooner.”

“You did great,” Avery says, flapping his hand dismissively, before wincing. “Don’t worry about it. I’d be fully dead without you.”

“Both of you would,” they snort. “Let’s go find somewhere to sit down for a bit while the healer puts you back together.”

Lacking any other options for transportation—especially after Zuhr explains that Anise, shifted back, will be too big for any of Sascha’s clothes—their pack walks. Most of them walk, anyway. Avery staggers. Sascha comes close to insisting on carrying him, but Petra says it’ll likely hurt even more, which Sascha doesn’t like but reluctantly accepts after receiving a stern look.

Just over twenty minutes away is a two-star hotel, where Sascha books an overnight stay for a room they’ll only get to use for a few hours, but they need the bathroom and the privacy. Not to mention food. Sascha bustles around, negotiating shower use and taking food orders, while Petra parks Avery on a chair in the corner, once again with nothing but a blanket to protect his modesty.

It takes longer than they’d hoped to patch Avery up. After showering, Beryl reluctantly submits to Petra’s examination. They grumble, but consent to a few short bursts of healing energy. Sheridan was not ordered into the fight, Zuhr’s magic use typically keeps her out of the central clash, and Anise only shakes his head when Petra asks if he needs medical attention. Sascha leaves the hotel, tailed by a quiet but insistent Zuhr, to retrieve food and buy clothes big enough to fit Anise.

They return to find Avery unconscious on the bed, and an exhausted-looking Petra slumped in the chair he’d occupied,watching over him. Sascha rubs his chest absently as he crosses the room, bending to brush a kiss over Avery’s temple.

“Have you figured it out yet?” Petra asks.

Sascha groans. “Just tell me.”

“You sure? I’m genuinely disappointed in your upbringing, you know. I thoughtsomeonewould’ve taught you better than this.”

“Oh my god, Petra.”

“Fine.” She smooths the long, thick braid she’d had pinned up during the fight, now draped over her shoulder. “Did you notice anything strange between yourself and Avery? Any sensations…?”

Frowning, Sascha asks, “What kind of sensations?” But it brings to mind the insistent tugging that led him and Avery together when they had no means of contact, the way he felt starving despite being well-fed, and the echo of pain whenever Avery took a hit during the fight. Petra raises her eyebrows, noting the realizations as they creep across Sascha’s face. “Why… What happened?”

Beryl figures it out first. “Did you guys actually mate already?”

Sascha’s head snaps around to look at them, the way their head is cocked and the amused smile playing on their lips, curled like those of a particularly smug cat. “No? I mean… No, we didn’t.” Laughter at his back makes Sascha stiffen.

“Somehow, you idiots managed to form a mate bond during Avery’s…”

Sascha eyes Petra over his shoulder, blushing hot at the gesture she makes. “But there was none of the… what you have to do to form a mate bond. I’m notthatignorant. I know how a unification ritual works.” He looks back to Avery, deep asleep on top of the sheets, body curved like a half-moon. His heart pounds.

“Avery is a werecreature, and it’s not as if muchexploration has been done into how shifter magic interacts with werecreature magic,” Petra says. “Over the course of however long you spent being intimate…”

“Like, a day and a half.”

Beryl snorts. Sascha shoots them a glare, but not a truly angry one. Mostly, he feels stupid, but also there is a sudden spinning in his gut. More vertigo? No, this is?—

Elation.

Sascha has to curl his fingers, nails biting his palms as he tenses to keep from bouncing on his toes.

“You must have created some magical process that served as a binding while you were taking care of him. You worked tirelessly, Sascha. I had to practically knock you out before you’d leave his side.” There’s a smile in Petra’s voice; Sascha hears it, even though he can’t manage to pry his eyes away from Avery again. “The bond didn’t need shifter rituals to establish itself. Seems the magic just decided for you guys.”

A slow smile spreads across Sascha’s lips when Avery snuffles in his sleep.

“When’re you gonna tell him?” Beryl wonders.

Sascha opens his mouth to say they should let him sleep a bit longer—he looks so fucking tiny and vulnerable, his pale skin strung together by multiple rows of black stitches—when Zuhr pushes away from the wall, frowning at her phone.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we need to hurry to the Wilderness camp. Charlie’s not safe there. The other pack members have started trashing our tents.”

“How far away is it?” Sascha asks, and when Zuhr grimaces, worry pools in his stomach.

Anise, whose biped form is truly massive, carries Avery. The first hour’s walk takes them from the hotel to Mackinac Beach. From there, a deeply anxious Zuhr, accompanied byBeryl, hurries ahead to fetch her brother. They both shift, and Sascha is surprised to see Zuhr’s bones crunch into the shape of a stooped lizard that looks very much like a meaner, spikier Komodo dragon. Faster, too, judging by how she and Beryl take off down the road.

The walk from the beach is quiet. Sascha is restless, wishing he could be the one holding Avery despite Petra having forbidden it. All the walking has already put him at risk of triggering another flare-up, and even though Avery looks weightless in Anise’s arms, Sascha wouldn’t have the stamina to do the same.