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ROLLO

R ollo Steele had smelled her before he saw her.

He’d barely stepped foot off the dirt trail when the wind shifted—carrying a current of rosemary, damp moss, and something heartbreakingly familiar. His whole body stilled.

Delilah.

The scent hit like a memory swung from a pine branch and smacked him clean in the gut. He stood in the middle of Main Street, boots rooted to the cobblestones, a burlap sack of feed slung over one shoulder and three raccoon kits squalling from the sanctuary cart behind him.

"Easy now," he muttered to the kits, but it wasn’t them making his pulse hitch.

She was here.

After eight years. And she had made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with him. Still, he found himself waiting outside hoping without an audience, she’d hear him out.

The bell above The Spellbound Sip jangled, soft and mocking, as the café door swung open—and there she was. Steam curling behind her like ghostlight, a mug clutched tight in her hands, and her dark chestnut curls pulled back with a ribbon that looked frayed from travel.

Time didn’t dare touch her.

She looked like every spring morning he'd ever missed.

Rollo froze, heart thudding a rhythm his bear growled against. She hadn’t seen him yet, thank the stars. He took a breath, then another, willing himself to keep walking.

But fate was never the polite kind.

She turned.

Hazel eyes locked with his. Hers narrowed. His widened.

Then the whole world narrowed down to the look she gave him—the one that said you left me, without speaking a single word.

“Delilah,” he said. Her name cracked in his throat like dry bark.

And she… didn’t respond. Not really. Not unless you counted that deadly tilt of her chin.

It stung.

“Can we talk?” he asked, voice lower now, softer. The kits chirped behind him like backup singers to his failure.

“No,” she snapped, all velvet fury and elegance, and then she was gone—walking fast enough to almost call it a jog across the street and to the apothecary.

And Rollo just stood there.

He let out a long breath and rubbed a hand across his jaw. His beard was too long—Delilah always said it made him look like a mountain hermit, which, to be fair, wasn’t wrong.

“Welcome back,” he muttered to himself.

A pedestrian vampire chuckled as he passed.

Back at Wolfe & Whiskers Sanctuary , the air was quieter, but not by much. The moment Rollo opened the gate, a chorus of magical chirps and howls rose from the pens. The phoenix pup— charred feathers still molting—let out a disgruntled squeak and flapped pitifully toward him.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m late.”

He dropped the feed sack and crouched beside the enclosure, his big hands gentle as he cleaned out the water bowl and replaced it with fresh springwater. The pup nuzzled his wrist, sparks flickering across its beak.

“Don't give me those eyes,” Rollo murmured. “I just ran into a ghost wearing my mate’s skin.”

He didn’t like the word mate. Not anymore.

The bond had snapped into place years ago like a trap sprung too soon. He hadn’t been ready. Not for the responsibility. Not for the heat of it. And sure as sin not for Delilah’s heart in his hands.

So he’d run, tried to push down what he felt he wasn’t ready for.

And she’d left.

And nothing had felt right since.

Inside the sanctuary cabin, the scent of cedar and tea tree clung to the wooden walls. Rollo set a kettle on the woodstove, then moved to the window overlooking the woods. The trees whispered with the wind, voices low and restless.

“She's back,” he said aloud.

No one responded, but the spirits in the woods shifted, branches creaking like joints waking from slumber.

Hazel Fairweather’s words came back to him like they often did when the forest grew too quiet.

"The bond isn't a curse, Rollo. It's a seed. It grows if you let it. And if you don't… it'll rot you from the inside out."

Well, he was already halfway rotten.

The kettle whistled.

He poured himself a cup of pine nettle tea—earthy and bitter, just how he liked it. Sat in his old rocking chair. Let the mug warm his palms.

But Delilah’s face was still burned behind his eyes. The way her jaw clenched. The way she wouldn’t even say his name again.

He deserved that.

Hell, he deserved worse.

Later that evening, he busied himself stacking firewood and checking on the rest of the sanctuary’s rescues: a wounded water sprite curled into a mossy basin, a mischievous bunyip pup chewing on enchanted rope, and three orphaned owlets that blinked in unison from their perch.

His hands knew the work.

His mind kept drifting.

He didn’t expect her to forgive him. He’d ghosted her. Walked out when she needed him. Because he hadn’t trusted himself—hadn’t trusted the bear inside him not to hurt her when the bond flared too bright.

But now?

He knew himself better.

And seeing her again didn’t spark panic. It sparked something warmer. Something like… hope. The kind that bloomed slow.

He finished his rounds, the stars bleeding into the sky above like silver brushstrokes. The town was quieter now, the Spellbound Sip likely closed, and the streets bathed in that familiar lavender twilight that only Celestial Pines could pull off.

He stepped onto the porch and leaned against the railing, cup in hand.

Out beyond the sanctuary, the Whispering Woods pulsed like a sleeping thing. Restless.

Wrong.

The trees weren’t just whispering—they were whining , keening low and long like something was festering inside them.

A cold wind cut through his shirt, and his bear stirred.

Trouble.

Rollo took a long sip of his tea and stared out at the line of trees.

Delilah’s magic could help. She was an Earth element after all, just like her grandmother.

But would she? And more importantly… would she ever let him get close enough to ask?