Page 112 of What We Become

“Yeah.” I rest my hands over hers. “But it’s secure.”

“You know the new system has both motion and thermal, right?” she says. “Even if he shows up in an invisibility poncho, the house will see him first.”

“Good,” I say. “Then I don’t have to kill the installer for missing a blind spot.”

She laughs, quick and real, and it zips through my chest in a way nothing else does.

I give her hands a gentle squeeze where they knot around my stomach, let them sit heavy against me while I breathe deep and false and try to convince my body that this is fine. That this is home. That the glare of the security panel mounted beside the front door is nothing more than reassurance and not a beacon constantly flashing with danger.

Micah and Eli breeze past with the last of the perishables.

“Okay,” Micah starts. “Ground rules for reentry. Nobody spirals in the first hour, nobody opens ominous mail without witnesses, and if anyone finds a hidden camera, please save the dramatic reveal for after we put the ice cream away.”

“There’s ice cream?” Sage asks, still attached to my back.

“There are three kinds,” Eli says. “Micah figured we’d want to eat our feelings later.”

“I want to eat my feelings now,” Sage says.

Milo, already booting up, points a finger in the air without turning around. “Important update. The WiFi password has been changed by Odin’s security people to something deeply offensive.”

“What is it?” Eli asks from somewhere behind me.

Milo squints at the screen. “F0rtr3ss#2291.”

Knox snorts.

“That’s not offensive,” Sage says.

“It is to me,” Milo replies. “It lacks whimsy.”

I turn in Sage’s arms, and she tucks herself into my chest instead, her cheek pressed against my sternum, body still like she’s scanning her surroundings.

“You want the tour of all the terrifying new safety features?” I ask her quietly.

She tips her face up. “Only if you promise to make it sexy.”

“I’m always sexy.”

“True.”

I put a hand at the back of her neck and kiss her forehead. Brief. Grounding. More for me than for her.

The house hums around us with the sound of unpacking. Cabinet doors. The fridge opening and shutting. Milo swearing softly at an update screen. Knox’s heavy tread recedes toward the back of the house as he starts his own sweep, even though Odin’s people already did one and so did I. None of us trusts another person’s assessment when it comes to Sage, but I’m not about to say that out loud while she’s warm against me. For one second, I want to pretend the walls aren’t closing in.

Then Sage slides her hand under my shirt.

Her palm spreads over my stomach, fingers cool, and when she looks up at me there’s that sharp silver spark in her eyes that always makes my pulse kick.

I catch her wrist under my shirt, slide my hand over hers, and then I’m kissing her.

Her mouth opens for me on the first press, like she knew this was coming. The foyer, the bags, the new locks, the sterile smell of the house—everything drops out. I cup her jaw and take the kiss deeper, slower than the heat in me wants, because if I let it go where it wants to go I’ll end up shoving her against the nearest wall and drawing blood.

She makes that soft, wrecking sound into my mouth and tightens her grip on my shirt.

“Holden,” she breathes.

“Need you, wildcat.”