Page 16 of Collar Me Crazy (Hollow Oak Mates #8)
RYKER
T he sound of footsteps told Ryker he wouldn't be alone with his demons for long. He didn't need to turn around to know who'd followed him—her scent carried on the November wind.
"That was subtle," she said, settling beside him on the rocky shore without invitation.
"Didn't realize you'd followed me."
"I'm beginning to think following you is becoming a habit." She pulled her coat tighter against the chill. "Want to talk about it?"
"About what?"
"About how that story just made you look like you'd seen a ghost."
Ryker picked up a stone from the shore, turning it over in his hands while he tried to find words for things he'd never spoken aloud.
The fiddle and laughter carried thin on the cold from here, and the only sounds were gentle waves lapping against stone and the whisper of wind through bare branches.
"Do you know what it's like to grow up knowing that strangers would kill you rather than risk what you might become?
" he asked, his voice giving away he felt more angst about it than he cared to admit.
"To have your entire identity reduced to a choice between saving or destroying everything you touch? "
"No," she said simply. "I don't."
Her honesty was refreshing after years of people who claimed to understand when they clearly didn't.
"Maddox doesn't know. About me, I mean. To him, it's just another founding legend, dramatic and mysterious. He catalogs legends, not people’s scars.
" Ryker threw the stone across the water, watching it skip in the moonlight.
"But I was there when Varric told me about the prophecy. I remember every word."
"How old were you?"
"Fifteen. Three years after my pack died." Another stone joined the first, disappearing into the dark water. "Old enough to understand what it meant, but young enough to let it shape every decision I've made since."
Sonya was quiet beside him, and he found himself grateful that she didn't rush to fill the silence with empty platitudes. It gave him space to decide how much of the truth he was willing to share.
"The night they came for us, I was asleep in the den I shared with my sister.
Maya was two years older, planning to mate with the beta's son come spring.
" The memories felt like shards of glass, cutting him even after all these years.
"My father burst in, told me to hide and not come out no matter what I heard. "
"But you did come out."
"Eventually. When the screaming stopped." He closed his eyes, but that only made the images more vivid. "Twenty-three wolves dead. My parents, my sister, my friends. All because a group of humans had gotten hold of old prophecies and decided I was too dangerous to live."
"Humans killed your pack?"
"Hunters with specialized gear and inside intel. Someone had told them exactly when and where to strike for maximum damage." The bitterness in his voice surprised him. "They would have killed me too, but Varric arrived with reinforcements just as they found my hiding spot."
"How did Varric know to come?"
"He'd been visiting our pack, studying old texts and asking questions about the blood moon births.
When he couldn't reach my father by phone that night, he got worried.
" Ryker opened his eyes, focusing on the gentle movement of water against shore.
"Found me half-dead from blood loss and shock, surrounded by everyone I'd ever loved. "
Sonya's hand found his, her gloved fingers warm and steady. "I'm sorry. That should never have happened to a child."
"Varric brought me here, gave me a new name, a new life.
But he also told me about the prophecy that had gotten my family killed.
" Ryker's voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
"A wolf born under the blood moon who would either unite or destory.
October thirteenth, thirty-one years ago, during the hunter's moon eclipse. "
"Your birthday."
"My birthday." He confirmed as he turned to look at her, noting how moonlight caught the warm brown of her eyes. "Do you understand now? Everyone I've ever dared to love has paid the price for what I represent. And that was before I knew what I was capable of."
"What are you capable of?"
The question should have been simple to answer, but Ryker found himself hesitating. "I don't know. That's the problem. The prophecy doesn't come with an instruction manual."
"Maybe that's the point." Sonya shifted to face him more fully. "Maybe you get to choose what kind of wolf you become."
"And if I choose wrong?"
"What if you choose right?" She squeezed his hand. "What if all this fear, all this isolation, is preventing you from becoming exactly what the supernatural world needs?"
"You don't understand?—"
"I understand that you've spent so long preparing for the worst-case scenario that you've forgotten to consider the best case.
" Her voice carried gentle challenge. "Yesterday, at the sanctuary, you lit up when you talked about your expansion plans.
That's not the perspective of someone destined for destruction. "
"That's just wishful thinking."
"Is it? Because I've seen you gentle with frightened animals, risking yourself to save lost hikers, building something beautiful and necessary out of nothing but compassion.
" She pulled off her gloves and framed his face with her bare hands. "You’re not a prophecy. You’re a man choosing, every day. "
The warmth of her skin against his made his wolf rumble with contentment, and for a moment, he let himself believe she might be right. That maybe he wasn't destined to be the monster everyone feared.
"You do not know what you're asking," he said softly.
"I'm asking you to please trust me. To trust us." Her thumbs traced the angles of his cheekbones. "I'm asking you to believe that some things are worth the risk."
"Sonya—"
"Stop thinking," she whispered, leaning closer. "Just for a minute, stop analyzing and planning and worrying. Be here with me."
The space between them disappeared as she rose on her toes, bringing their lips together in a kiss that was soft and tentative and absolutely perfect.
For a heartbeat, Ryker's mind went blank, overwhelmed by the sensation of finally, finally touching her the way his wolf had been demanding since that first moment by the lake.
When she started to pull back, he caught her face in his hands and deepened the kiss, pouring years of loneliness and longing into the connection between them. She tasted like cinnamon and magic, like coming home after a lifetime of wandering.
His wolf sang with recognition and triumph, flooding him with certainty that this woman, this moment, was exactly what they'd been waiting for. The prophecy, the fear, the careful distance he'd maintained—none of it mattered when she was in his arms, warm and willing and absolutely perfect.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Sonya rested her forehead against his.
"See?" she said softly. "The world didn't end."
"Give it time," he replied, but there was no real heat in the words.
"Pessimist."
"Realist."
"Same thing, with you." She smiled, and the expression transformed her face into something luminous. "But I'm willing to work on that."
Above them, stars wheeled across the clear November sky, and somewhere in the distance, the festival continued without them. But here by the lake, with Sonya's warmth seeping into his bones and her scent surrounding him like a promise, Ryker felt something shift inside him.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he did get to choose what kind of wolf he became.
And for the first time since boyhood, the weight of the prophecy didn’t feel quite so heavy.