The eastern bend of Clearwater's river.
I had not been here since Mating Night. Seven months and the rest of my life ago, the distance between that version of myself and the one standing here now feeling far longer than the calendar suggested it should.
It looked the same. The wide slow bend of dark water. The moss-soft bank. The old trees with their roots breaking the surface in the same familiar pattern, the exact place I had always come to when I needed somewhere quiet to fall apart in private.
Caden and I walked to the bank together. The two warriors waited at the tree line, giving us the distance the moment required. Rowan stayed with the vehicle, his patience as steady as it always was.
I crouched at the water's edge, carefully, seven months pregnant and aware of every shift in m
