Two weeks passed in a blur of cautious happiness. Skyler and I fell into a routine—morning coffee at the diner, afternoons where he worked at Chrome & Fang while I painted, evenings spent talking or watching movies at my parents' house where we maintained appropriate distance under my mother's watchful eye.
It was domestic. Sweet. Almost normal.
Too normal, my wolf whispered. We weren't normal people. We were wolves with a bond that had been broken and was still healing, with a pack watching our every move, with a three-month deadline hanging over our heads.
I was learning Skyler all over again. How he took his coffee (black, two sugars now instead of none—"I'm trying to be less bitter in all aspects of life"). How he listened when I talked about my art, asking questions that showed he
