It was wrong, he knew. But he was so thoroughly damned already, what was one more small sin?

Her fingers intertwined through his. The soft sweetness of her pulse echoed through his own veins. He couldn’t let go.

Not again.

So Ash held Rose’s hand, and let her lead him through the darkening night.

The streetlamp was lit outside the Full Moon, bathing the old, homely building in a warm yellow glow. Rose tugged him up to the front door, casting a shy, hesitant smile up at him. Even in the flickering artificial light, he could see that there was something new in her expression. A tentative unfurling, like the first flower of spring turning to the sun.

He looked away, unable to bear that faint, shining hope in her eyes. But he still didn’t let go of her hand.

After decades apart, every second in contact with her was a gift. A grace. He was not strong enough to refuse it.

Especially not now.

Rose unlocked the door. The main room of the pub was dark, chairs upturned onto tables for the night. By sheer force of habit, he turned in the direction of Alpha Team’s usual corner, but Rose tugged on his hand.

“Not down here,” she said, guiding him past the bar and through the door at the back. “Come on.”

The corridor was even darker than the front room, but he didn’t need light to know the way. The worn stairs were familiar under his boots. He’d climbed them many times over the years, usually due to some crisis. Whenever one of the team needed help, whenever something threatened their mates…it was always to the small private room at the Full Moon that they came.

Dai, Chase, Griff, John, Hugh…he’d witnessed all their struggles and their triumphs here. Helped them, inasmuch as he could. Watched them gather together, friends, colleagues, family. Sometimes at odds with each other, like any group of brothers, but always, ultimately, united.

Tonight the meeting room was locked and silent. He went past it without a pause.

There was a door at the end of the corridor. This one he had never been through. He’d dreamed of opening it so often that it seemed unreal to step through it now.

“Well,” Rose said, peeking up at him sidelong. “Here we are.”

She opened her fingers. After a moment, he made himself open his, releasing her hand. She left his side, moving around to turn on a couple of lamps. Darkness gave way to a soft, welcoming light.

His first impression was vibrant color and warmth. Her room above the pub was not much larger than his own living space, but whereas his territory was plain and utilitarian, hers was filled with homely details.

A thick rug with a geometric orange pattern that reminded him of flames softened the worn oak floorboards. A single armchair, deep and comfortable, with a tangle of half-finished knitting draped over one arm. From the rich indigo color and wave-like texture, he guessed it was a baby blanket for John and Neridia’s yet-unborn child. Half the shifter infants in Brighton slept swaddled in the loving work of her hands.

She only had a small kitchenette up here—just a hot plate and a microwave. Of course, she would do her cooking downstairs in the pub, much as he prepared his own meals in the fire station’s kitchen. A single plate and cup were upside-down on the draining board next to the sink. She ate alone, as he did, above the place that was her life’s work.

A half-open door on the other side of the room showed him a glimpse of her bed. He jerked his gaze quickly away, and found himself staring at a wall of framed photos. He recognized some of them—Brighton Pier, the shingle beach, the sweeping view over the city from the top of the enclosing hills. An open day at the fire station, a long time ago, Dai and Chase with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders. Young, so young.

Others were clearly family photos. Aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces. Some of them dark-skinned, some pale, but all with Rose’s elegant, swan-like poise. A succession of pictures tracked half a dozen children growing from chubby-cheeked infants to smiling or scowling adolescents.

There were photos that an ordinary human would have assumed were digital paintings, but he knew better. Hayley leaning against the side of a great golden griffin, his beak preening her hair. Two sea dragons sporting in the waves. A unicorn glimmering through a winter-bare wood.

And one that looked like a misprint, an error. Just a yellow-white blur streaking over a faded blue, overexposed, all the colors blown out.

Rose came to his elbow, following the direction of his gaze. “You remember that day?”

He touched the glass over the photo, carefully. It had been her fortieth birthday. A picnic in the countryside, sunlight caught in her hair. Dozens of shifters, a little drunk, a little silly, safely out of sight of human eyes. He’d asked her what she wanted as a present.

“I warned you it wouldn’t come out,” he said, looking at the bolt of fire across the sky.

“It’s my favorite anyway.” She didn’t say anything for a moment, gazing at the photo of the Phoenix. “How long, Ash?”

He knew what she was asking. “Always. Since the day we met.”

Her breath sighed out of her. “Ten years…and you never said anything.”

“Neither did you.”

She slanted her eyes at him, a flash of the fire that he knew so well. “I did eventually.”

“Yes.” He couldn’t delay any longer. “Which is why we need to talk.”

She sighed again. “Wait a moment.”

He stood back, a misplaced, foreign presence in her cozy home, as she dragged her single dining chair over so that it was opposite the armchair. She gestured him to sit down, but didn’t take her own place. Instead, she went to a low cabinet, crouching to rummage around inside.

“This sounds,” she said, emerging with a tawny bottle and a pair of tumblers, “like a conversation that might require a stiff drink.” She hesitated. “Or do you still want the usual?”

He’d tried to numb himself with alcohol, a long time ago, when he’d been younger and the self-inflicted wound still fresh. It hadn’t worked. He’d avoided it ever since, the taste forever associated with bitter grief and hatred.

He took the glass from her anyway. “This is not a usual situation.”

She poured a generous measure for both of them. He knew the bottle—Scotch, from Griff’s family distillery up in the Highlands. Made for shifters, by shifters, with a punch that could fell a full-grown bear.

He knocked it back in a single swallow. Smooth smoky sweetness. Ashes and rage and emptiness.

When he lowered the glass, Rose was watching him, her expression troubled. She put her own drink down on the coffee table between them, untouched.

“You’re starting to scare me, Ash,” she said.

“Good.” His voice came out hoarse, his chest still burning with the unaccustomed whiskey. “You should be scared of me.”

She gave him an exasperated look. “Not of you, ridiculous man. For you.” She leaned her elbows on her knees, her whole body intently focused on him. “Whatever this secret is, you’ve been keeping it for a long time. And I think it’s been eating you alive.”

Now that the time had come to speak, his throat had closed up. He said nothing.

A little hesitantly, she reached out. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away as she folded her fingers around his. For once, she was the warmer one. Her touch burned like a brand against his cold skin.

“Tell me, Ash,” she whispered.

His time had run out, decades ago. He had been living on stolen grace ever since.

But he couldn’t lie to her any longer.

He forced himself to meet her eyes. Her beautiful, trusting eyes, even now looking at him with nothing but love and openness.

“I need to tell you about your mate,” he said.