Page 38 of Mate Night Snack (Hollow Oak Mates #2)

KATNISS

K atniss woke slowly, consciousness returning like a gentle tide, to find herself exactly where she belonged: wrapped in Emmett's arms, her head pillowed on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat and somehow back in his cabin.

She felt completely, utterly at home.

Not just in the physical sense, though the cabin had become her sanctuary over the past months. But deeper than that. Soul-deep. Like every wandering piece of herself had finally found its proper place and settled there with a sigh of relief.

"Morning," Emmett's voice rumbled beneath her ear, rough with sleep and warm with affection.

"Morning." She smiled against his chest, still marveling at how easily the word fit. "Sleep well?"

"Best I've slept in years." His fingers found her hair, combing through the tangles with gentle patience. "You?"

"Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be."

"You are." He kissed her deeply. "We both are."

Through the window, she could hear the familiar sounds of Hollow Oak waking up.

Birds calling to each other from the ancient oaks, the distant rumble of Varric's old truck heading into town, the soft chime of Twyla's protective bells carried on the morning breeze.

Ordinary sounds that felt extraordinary because they meant belonging, continuity, home.

"I should probably get up," she said without making any move to leave the warmth of his arms. "I've got that podcast episode to record."

"The final one?"

"The final one." She looked at him, seeing her own contentment reflected in his storm-gray eyes. "End of an era."

"Beginning of a new one."

"Same thing, really." She stretched, cat-like, then reluctantly began the process of extracting herself from their tangle of limbs and quilts. "Want coffee before I disappear into my creative cave?"

"Always."

"You're glowing," Emmett observed, setting a steaming mug in front of her.

"Literally or metaphorically?"

"Both." He leaned against the counter, his own coffee cradled between his hands. "The magic's still active. I can see it when the light hits you just right."

Katniss examined her arm, noting the delicate tracery of golden lines that seemed to live just beneath her skin. "Think it's permanent?"

"Hope so." His voice carried a possessive satisfaction that made her stomach flutter with warmth. "Means you're protected. Means you're mine."

"I was already yours." She kissed his lips, tasting coffee and contentment. "The magic just made it official."

After breakfast, she settled into the corner of the living room that had become her makeshift recording studio, equipment arranged on the old wooden desk Emmett had built for her.

Her laptop sat open, cursor blinking in the empty document where she'd write the show notes later.

The microphone waited patiently, red light dark for now.

This was usually the part where her stomach would tie itself in knots, where the familiar anxiety of creation would settle between her shoulder blades like an unwelcome guest. But today, she felt nothing but calm certainty.

She knew exactly what she wanted to say.

"Testing, testing." Her voice came through the headphones clear and strong. "This is Katniss Greaves, and welcome to what might be the strangest episode I've ever recorded."

She paused, gathering her thoughts, then continued.

"For three years, I've been telling you stories about the disappeared, the forgotten, the mysteries that keep people awake at night.

Cold cases and missing persons, unsolved murders and unexplained vanishings.

I've built a career on other people's tragedies, on the spaces where answers should be but aren't."

Through the window, she could see Emmett working in the garden, his movements efficient and peaceful as he prepared the beds for winter. The sight of him there, solid and real and hers, made her smile.

"But sometimes," she continued, "the story you're chasing isn't the one you're meant to tell. Sometimes you follow a mystery to its end only to discover that the real story was the one you were living all along."

She told them about Hollow Oak, carefully edited to remove any supernatural elements that might endanger the town's secrecy.

A hidden community in the mountains where she'd come looking for answers about a missing girl from the 1990s.

How what she'd found instead was belonging, purpose, love in the most unexpected places.

"I came here thinking I was hunting ghosts," she said, her voice soft with wonder. "What I found was that sometimes the best mysteries aren't meant to be solved. They're meant to be lived."

The recording flowed easily, words spilling out like water from a spring. She talked about the power of choosing your own family, about finding home in people rather than places, about the courage it takes to let yourself be known completely by another person.

"The case that brought me here... it did get solved, eventually.

But not in the way I expected, and not by me alone.

It took a whole community, working together, refusing to let the past poison the present.

" She paused, thinking of Ashwin, of the ghostly seers finally at peace, of justice served not by law enforcement but by love and truth and the simple refusal to let fear win.

"Some stories don't end with arrests or convictions.

They end with healing. With closure. With the understanding that moving forward matters more than looking back. "

She talked about her decision to stay in Hollow Oak, to build a life in a place most people would never find on any map. About the man she'd married, careful to keep his privacy intact while still conveying the depth of what they'd found together.

"So this is goodbye," she said finally, emotion making her voice thick.

"Not to mysteries or stories or the search for truth, but to this particular way of telling them.

I'll still be investigating, still be asking questions, still be fighting for the forgotten.

But I'll be doing it from home now, surrounded by people who love me exactly as I am. "

She signed off the way she always did, with her tagline about truth and justice and the power of refusing to give up. But this time, the words felt like a benediction rather than a promise, a grateful acknowledgment of battles fought and won rather than a declaration of war against the unknown.

When she emerged from her makeshift studio an hour later, show notes written and the episode uploaded to her hosting platform, she found Emmett waiting with fresh coffee and the kind of smile that made her knees weak.

"How'd it go?"

"Perfect." She accepted the mug gratefully, inhaling the rich aroma. "Exactly what it needed to be."

"Any regrets about closing that chapter?"

She considered the question seriously, looking around at the cabin that had become home, at the man who'd become her anchor, at the life they were building together one ordinary moment at a time.

"None," she said finally. "I've spent three years telling other people's stories. I think it's time I started living my own."

That afternoon, as they worked together to winterize the garden, Katniss felt the rightness of her decision settle into her bones like warmth from a fire.

The podcast had been important, had helped people, had given voice to the voiceless.

But it had also been a way of staying at arm's length from her own life, of observing rather than participating.

Now, with soil under her fingernails and Emmett's laughter in her ears, with the golden sigils humming contentedly beneath her skin and the mate bond singing in her chest, she understood the difference between telling stories and living them.

Some mysteries were meant to be solved.

Others were meant to be embraced.

And the very best ones, the ones that changed everything, were meant to be lived fully, completely, with all the joy and messiness and beautiful imperfection that real life could offer.

"What are you thinking about?" Emmett asked, following her gaze toward the forest where their story had begun.

"How perfect this is," she said simply. "How perfectly ordinary and perfectly extraordinary at the same time."

"That's life," he replied, pressing a kiss to her temple. "The magic's in the everyday moments as much as the big dramatic ones."

"I love our everyday moments."

"Good," he said, pulling her close. "Because we're going to have about fifty years' worth of them."

"Only fifty?"

"Well, maybe sixty if you eat your vegetables."

She laughed, the sound bright and free in the crisp autumn air, and realized that this was what happiness felt like. Not a destination to be reached, but a choice to be made, over and over, in the small moments that added up to a life.

She'd found her story at last.

And it was beautiful.