Page 54 of Tiger Born

Misty’s face crumpled and she dropped her chin to her chest as two tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d wanted Dame to keep it all.

“I knew if she was able to save me, I was going to give you space. I was going to give me space. I don’t even know who I am, Dame. I’ve been the tiger for so long, and my memories of who I was before the Turn are so blurry. I think I died and now I have to figure out how to be…this. I think we will both make each other’s lives smaller if I don’t go out and figure out who I am.”

“Are you going with Mars?” Dame asked.

“No.”

Mars shook his head to reiterate.

“But you knew?” Dame asked Mars.

Mars nodded. “Yeah.”

Dame chewed the corner of his lip and looked over at Misty. His heart was in his eyes. “Are we okay with this?”

She lifted the hand he’d placed on her thigh to her lips and nodded. “Can we plan the next visit now?” she asked the boys. It would help Dame to not feel the total loss of his brothers if there was a countdown.

“Sure,” Mars rumbled.

“One year from today,” Stellan said.

“A year?” Dame asked softly.

Stellan nodded. “I need a year to make both of you proud. I swear I will be back here in one year.”

Mars was watching Stellan’s face, and with that, he crossed his arms over his chest. “One year then. We will come back right around the anniversary of Mom’s death. Right around the anniversary of Stellan getting himself back. A year out of the cage. A year with Misty in our Ambush.” He lifted his beer up and settled it in the air between them. “The first oath as an Ambush is that we meet back here every year. No matter what.”

Stellan lifted his beer and rested the lip of it against the glass bottle neck of Marsden’s.

Misty was having trouble dragging her eyes away from Dame. God, she loved him, and she could feel his hesitation.

She understood though, and she would get him through this. She would be here. She would build the life and the bond with him and make sure he was in a good spot when his Ambush returned to him.

She lifted her beer and touched the lip against Mars’s.

Dame inhaled deeply and lifted his beer, then clinked it softly, and then they all drank.

“We’re still an Ambush,” Stellan said.

Dame nodded. “Yeah.”

“We are,” Mars said sternly. “You can hear the truth in our voices.”

Stellan stood and started clearing their plates. Mars helped, but Dame sat there lost in thought, and Misty stayed right with him.

She scooted her chair closer to him and slid her hand to the crook of his elbow, rubbing him comfortingly there.

He forced a smile and leaned in, kissed her. When he eased back, he rested his forehead on hers. “They’re right, aren’t they?”

She kissed him and then rested her cheek against his shoulder, staring at the two trucks that would be pulling away from them all too soon.

“Does it feel like they’re right?” she asked.

He waited three seconds before he said, “Yeah.”

“You and I are going to fill this whole year with good,” she promised him. “We will have so many stories to tell them. They will also be proud of you.”

“That feels right too.”