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ROLLO

R ollo hadn’t moved.

Not when the sanctuary door clicked shut behind her. Not when her scent had faded into the woods. Not when the pain cracked something ancient and unmended inside his chest.

He stood there, dumbstruck, one hand still lifted like he might catch the ghost of her goodbye.

“She really went,” he said aloud, though no one answered.

The phoenix pup chirped once from the straw basket, and that somehow made it worse.

He dropped to the bench like a felled tree, elbows on his knees, chest heaving.

“I let her walk away.”

But even as the words left his mouth, his bear stirred.

No. She walked because she thought it was the only way to protect him. To protect everything.

But she was wrong.

Love wasn’t his weakness. It was his anchor .

He stood fast, his ribs screaming in protest—but his will stronger.

“I’m not lettin’ her fight this alone.”

Rollo snatched his jacket, grabbed the bundle of salt wards from the cabinet, and pressed his palm against the old map carved into the wall of the sanctuary’s storage room. His fingers found the grove marker—the place where moonvine twisted wild and the spirits whispered louder than reason.

He already knew that’s where she’d gone.

The bond between them wasn’t gone. Just… quieter. Dimmed like candlelight behind thick glass. He could still feel her—like a heartbeat not his own.

He headed into the woods.

The Whispering Woods were not kind tonight.

Every step was met with resistance.

The underbrush didn’t just tangle—it fought , coiling like serpents around his boots, tugging at his ankles, testing his balance.

Brambles snatched at the hem of his shirt, tearing threads as though demanding a toll for passage.

The roots beneath the soil seemed to swell with every footfall, shifting like waves under his weight, making solid ground feel like a lie.

The trees themselves leaned inward, their limbs creaking with old suspicion. Bark peeled like watchful eyes. Leaves rustled without wind, murmuring secrets Rollo couldn’t catch, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

It was like walking into a trial. And still, he pressed forward.

“She’s mine,” he growled low, voice barely more than a breath but steeped in steel. “You can test me, warn me, twist the paths—I don’t care. I’m not leaving her out here to bleed alone.”

The wind stirred, but not gently. It surged up in a sudden cyclone, spiraling with pine needles and dust, slapping him hard across the face. The scent of earth and ash filled his lungs.

Then the whisper came, not from one voice, but many. Woven through the wind, the moss, the bones of the trees:

She chose the path. You were not invited.

It wasn’t cruel. It was final. Guarded.

Rollo stopped only for a moment, bracing a hand on the gnarled trunk of an elder oak. His heart hammered in his chest, not from fear, but from fury. Grief. Love.

“She didn’t mean to walk it alone,” he said, teeth gritted. “She just thought she had to.”

The vines around him stilled. The air shifted again—less hostile now. Quieter. Listening.

“I made her think she was safer without me,” he admitted, softer now. “But I won’t let her carry that weight. Not when it’s mine too.”

Silence fell. And the path opened.

The brambles curled back just slightly. The roots stilled. The trees—those old, judgmental sentinels—stood aside.

The spirits didn’t answer. But they let him pass. Because even the forest, in its own ancient way, knew a heart like his didn’t break—it fought .

And that kind of love? It didn’t need permission. It only needed purpose.

He found her in the moonvine grove.

She sat cross-legged in the center of the clearing, magic pulsing around her in quiet waves. The vines had curled near her body like lovers seeking warmth. Her eyes were closed, lips moving in a chant he barely heard—one meant to shield, maybe, or to bind.

But she paused the moment he stepped into the light.

Her eyes opened slowly. Wide. Brimming.

“You weren’t supposed to come,” she whispered.

He didn’t stop moving.

“Then you should’ve made that more clear.”

“Would it have mattered?”

“Nope.”

Delilah stood, her shoulders squared, but her chin trembled.

“I told you—this isn’t your battle. Not anymore.”

His steps were slow, deliberate, and full of everything he couldn’t say. “You don’t get to make that call for me.”

“I’m trying to protect you?—”

“And I’m trying to love you,” he snapped, voice shaking. “That’s what this is. That’s what this means. ”

He stepped into the edge of the grove’s pulse and felt it—magic sharp like pine needles, warning him off. He didn’t flinch.

She looked away. “If Garrick finds me, he’ll use me against you.”

“Then I’ll stop him.”

“What if you can’t?”

He took her hands—rough, calloused, warm. Still trembling.

“I almost died without you,” he whispered. “And not just from the poison. But from being too afraid to let you in. I’m done hiding. Done treating this bond like it’s a burden.”

She blinked up at him, eyes shimmering.

“It’s not a curse,” he said. “It’s our strength. And you know it.”

Delilah’s breath caught.

“You still love me?” she asked, voice breaking on the last word.

He laughed rough, raw, aching.

“Of course I do. You walking away doesn’t change that.”

Her lips parted, and she reached for him.

Their kiss was fire and roots and breaking open—two halves locking together the way only soul-deep things could.

The forest hushed. And for a breathless moment, the corruption stilled.

Love wasn’t a weakness.

It was the strongest thing they had.