And the scent of her. Salt and sun-warm skin and something green underneath, cut grass, rain on stone, and beneath all of it a sweetness I've never smelled on anyone, that goes straight past every wall I've got. It's the scent that undoes me worse than the sight. A wolf lives by scent, and mine has decided hers is the only one that matters, and there is no suppressant on earth strong enough to argue him out of it.
No. I stop the thought before it finishes. It's grasping. It's a scared boy inventing a reason for a thing he wants to be true, and I can't afford it. What I can afford is the plain fact in front of me, which is that she felt the touch, which means the bond has her, which means she is not going to be able to walk away from this the way a human is supposed to, the way I've been c
