Page 13 of Mate Night Snack (Hollow Oak Mates #2)

KATNISS

K atniss woke before the sun.

Her journal lay open on the nightstand, the pages crammed with scribbles of names, symbols, entries from the attic, the Veil, wolf fur, Ashwin, and now Emmett. She had underlined shifter three times in red ink the night before, like seeing it repeated might make it less absurd.

Except it wasn’t absurd anymore.

He hadn’t lied. Not with that look in his eyes. Not with that ache in his voice.

Magic was real. The Veil was real. Hollow Oak wasn’t just steeped in secrets. It was a secret—living, breathing, sentient in ways that defied logic but felt true down to the bone.

And Emmett?

He was the only thing in this town that made her feel tethered and she couldn’t explain why that was.

Katniss closed the journal and stretched, her limbs still sore from the strange energy that had followed her like a storm the day before. A pulse of it still tugged at her ribs.

She moved on instinct now more than she wanted to admit. But instincts were all she had in a place like this.

By the time she stepped outside, the morning mist had curled low over the garden.

The sun hadn’t risen past the treetops, and the dew still clung to the porch steps.

Emmett was already waiting at the back clearing near the edge of the inn’s property, arms crossed, flannel sleeves rolled to his elbows.

“Sleep?” he asked.

“Define sleep,” she said, jogging toward him. “If you mean a series of half-conscious panic naps broken up by visions of talking forests, then yeah. Fantastic.”

He actually smiled. Not the twitch at the corner of his mouth kind. A real one.

“Good,” he said. “We’ll train light this morning. Build from there.”

She blinked. “Train?”

“You want to survive out here, you need to learn how to defend yourself. The charm helps. So will I.”

Katniss tilted her head. “You mean, like… fighting?”

“Hand-to-hand. Situational. I can’t teach you to shift, but I can teach you how not to freeze if something gets close.”

She wrinkled her nose. “This isn’t going to turn into some weird woodland CrossFit, is it?”

He raised a brow. “You’re free to run laps after.”

She groaned, pulling her hair back into a messy knot. “Let’s just get this over with.”

They started slow.

Stance. Balance. Footwork.

Emmett explained everything with the patience of someone who rarely spoke unless he meant it. His hands brushed her waist once to correct her center, and she nearly forgot how to breathe. His palm at her shoulder to shift her guard felt like a branding iron.

Not because it was romantic, but because it was him.

Grounded. Steady. Watching her like she wasn’t just a student but something breakable he didn’t know how to keep from cracking.

“Stop thinking,” he said when she flinched at a feint. “You’re leading with your brain. That’s why you hesitate.”

“Newsflash,” she muttered, wiping her brow. “My brain’s the only thing that’s kept me alive.”

“Not anymore,” he said. “Out here, instinct matters more.”

They circled again. He lunged at her and she dodged him. Barely.

He smirked. “Better.”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t gloat.”

Then he swept her leg. She hit the ground with a sharp grunt and landed flat on her back in the damp grass.

“Ow.”

“You’re too upright,” he said, crouching beside her. “Your center’s too high.”

“Maybe yours is just low because you’re built like a damn tree trunk.”

He offered her his hand. She slapped it away.

“Again.”

They ran the drill twice more. The third time, she moved faster. Less thought. More instinct. She pivoted, ducked his reach, and caught him off-balance. But he recovered fast, grabbing her wrist and twisting them into a roll she didn’t see coming.

They landed in a heap. Her breath punched out of her lungs. His arms were braced around her. Her knees had tangled with his legs. And when she opened her eyes, he was right there.

Inches away.

His chest heaved under her palms. His flannel had come undone at the collar, revealing a sliver of scarred skin at the base of his throat. His eyes weren’t blue anymore.

They were amber.

Neither moved.

Her hand lifted slowly, almost without thought, brushing his cheekbone with just the edge of her fingers. She leaned in because it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Like gravity had been waiting for them to be this close.

But before her lips could meet his, Emmett shifted.

Not away, but inward. Retreating into himself.

He turned his face and eased out from beneath her, standing in one smooth, practiced motion. “I can’t,” he said quietly.

Katniss sat up, breath still catching in her throat.

She didn’t ask why and she didn’t press. But the sting was there anyway, blooming low in her chest, quiet and sharp.

She nodded once. Brushed grass from her arms.

“Right,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. “Let’s keep going.”

But they didn’t spar again. They stood there in the clearing, a breath apart, surrounded by birdsong and a silence that buzzed louder than words.

He watched her.

She didn’t look back because part of her already knew.

He was afraid.

Not of her. Of what she meant.

And worse?

So was she.