Page 70 of Knot Your Sugar Rush (Starling Grove #2)
Chapter seventy
Cam
W e leave the clearing as the sun climbs just past its peak, the forest ahead tilting into steeper ground. The trail narrows, winding between moss-slick boulders and thick ferns. Each step carries the faint tang of iron-rich soil and the green bite of crushed leaves.
Jamie leans a little heavier on his stick now, and without a word, Dane drifts back to walk beside him.
Not hovering—Dane never hovers—but close enough that a steadying hand could be there before a slip even happens.
Theo, up ahead, glances over his shoulder more often, his eyes flicking from Jamie’s footing to the rocks ahead, already plotting the easiest path.
When the slope sharpens, Dane swings his pack around to the front and offers his shoulder without breaking stride.
Jamie accepts it wordlessly, his fingers curling briefly into Dane’s jacket as he navigates a tricky rise.
Theo steps off the trail to hold a low branch back for all of us, only letting it snap quietly into place once we’re clear.
No one makes a joke. No one comments. They just move as one—three alphas pouring their focus into every step, every shift of weight, every quiet adjustment. The silence isn’t awkward; it’s steady, protective. A language all its own.
The ridge climb is long and slow, the kind that makes my calves burn before we’re halfway up.
Heat pools low in my body again, restless but softened by the rhythm of us together.
The muted scuff of boots, the creak of leather straps, the sound of Jamie’s quiet breaths—everything weaves into a pulse that grounds me.
When we pause for water near a weathered old log, Dane digs into Jamie’s pack without asking and presses a wrapped protein bar into his hand. “Eat,” he says simply, and somehow the word feels like a whole paragraph.
Theo, crouched over the map on his knee, looks up with a small smile. “We’re making better time than I expected. Keep this pace, we’ll hit the ridge summit before the light goes.”
Jamie huffs a laugh around his first bite. “I’m holding you to that, cartographer.”
We move again, higher into the ridgeline, the light shifting from warm gold to cooler shade beneath the trees.
My thighs ache, but I don’t mind. This—this wordless web of care and steady movement—is what safety feels like.
And with every step, my resolve threads tighter.
The flower may still lie far ahead, but I’m not walking toward it alone.
We crest the last slope with the sun leaning west, the sky above the treeline a pale, endless blue.
The ridge levels under our boots, giving way to a small clearing where the wind finally reaches us.
It rushes over the top in a cool wash, tugging at the loose edges of our packs, carrying the sharp scent of pine and something sweeter—wildflowers, faint but distinct.
Theo stops first, shoulders pulling back as though he wants to drink in the horizon. “There,” he murmurs, half to himself. “That valley runs east into the marshland. Could be promising.”
Dane sweeps his gaze over the spread below us, sharp and assessing. A quilt of green and gold stretches to the distance, sunlight glinting off water where it catches. Somewhere out there, hidden in all that wild, the flower waits.
I shift closer to Jamie, steadying him as he comes up the last step onto the ridge. His weight leans into me for just a heartbeat before he straightens, squinting into the light. “Worth the climb,” he says quietly.
No one argues. We stand together in the hush of shared effort, shoulders almost touching, letting the moment sink into us. Dane glances sideways at Theo, a wordless question sparking between them: Which way first?
Theo crouches again, spreading the map over his thigh, his fingertip tracing valleys like he can read their secrets in the lines.
Dane squats beside him, his voice clipped and purposeful as they weigh the options.
Jamie and I hang back, listening but content, watching the brothers work—fluid, instinctive, like a stream splitting and rejoining around stones.
The wind shifts again, carrying more of that sweet note through the clearing. I watch Theo’s head lift, his eyes narrowing like he’s trying to taste the air. “Not it,” he says finally, “but close enough to tell us we’re in the right kind of ground.”
Dane nods, slow and sure. “Then we push down to the valley tomorrow. It’ll give us daylight and a full stretch to search. There are some good spots to make camp just over there, I think.” He points to the left.
Jamie lowers himself onto a boulder, stretching his leg out without complaint. Dane hands him a flask before he can even ask, and Theo rolls the map away, tucking it into his pack.
We don’t rush on. For a while, the ridge belongs to us—our breaths evening out, the ache in my muscles melting into something almost pleasant, the sun’s warmth tempered by the mountain wind. The flower is still out there, waiting.