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THE DEER FELL with a single shot. The crack of the bullet rang out through the forest like a warning sign, sending a couple of does sprinting off deeper into the woods at the sound of the bush crashing to the hard ground in the clearing. The snow shook as though an earthquake had shuddered the rocks, a shudder rippling away from the hefty body that lay still, its magnificent antlers piercing the snow.

A rush of success coursed through Adele, her anticipation bursting into glee as she thrashed through the bracken to reach the deer. Caleb followed at her heel, expertly navigating the ground that begged him to slip, and he crouched to haul the buck onto his shoulders, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. A throb of electricity pulsed down her arm, her body still getting used to the connection that bonded her to him.

"You don't want it?" he asked, his face falling. "Why did you kill it if you don't want it?"

"I do want it," she said, shaking her head. "Of course I do – I wouldn't kill it just for the sake of it, but I want to do a quick field dress on it first."

"What's that?"

She dropped her bag to the floor and yanked open the drawstring, pulling out a mighty hunting knife. "We gut it here." It wasn't often that she performed a field dressing on a deer, preferring to haul it back to the garage in one piece, but the forest had been frozen over for weeks now. "We'll leave the insides for the wolves, and it'll be lighter for you to carry."

"Oh. Ok. Show me how."

Those had become some of his most used words since he had got to know Adele, his inquisitive mind working hard and fast to catch up to her life. He helped her roll the buck onto its back, propping up his heavy head on a snowdrift, and he winced as he watched her slice off its genitals before cutting through the skin from the anus to the jaw. Pulling the skin away, she cut along the same incision to carve through the muscle, careful not to puncture the organs.

"Can you do this for me?" She handed him the knife, gesturing at the cartilage of the breastbone. He followed her lead, cutting through the cartilage to split open the ribs so she could sever the windpipe and oesophagus and tug them down hard to the middle. "Now roll it onto the side."

When he did as he was told, effortlessly easing the buck onto its side, Adele took the knife from him and slashed the diaphragm to free the intestines. Caleb rolled the deer onto the other side and she repeated the cut.

"Now pull it all out," she said, standing back to watch as Caleb swiftly gutted the dear, entrails spilling out onto the snow and staining it red. "We can leave that there for the wolves." She pulled a sheet out of her bag, stuffing it into the carcass to save time on draining the body. "Right. Let's go."

Caleb knew the part he had to play from that point on. Tying the feet together with a length of rope with one of the many knots Adele had taught him, he hauled the buck onto his shoulders to be skinned at home.

"You're pretty useful, you know," she said as she cleaned off the knife and pulled her bag over her shoulders. "I could've done with you years ago. Where've you been all my life?" She chuckled but Caleb didn't laugh.

"Right here," he said. "Looking for you."

He held the deer by the feet with one hand. The other grazed Adele's bare fingers before she pulled her gloves back on. Heat rushed to her hands, her palm finding his, and she fizzed when their fingers laced together. Despite the foot that separated their heights, she found it oddly comfortable to hold his hand like that, to walk so close to him. She had never held anyone's hand before. Not like that. Not for longer than a kiss.

They walked for half an hour. Not once did their hands part.

*

Adele didn't have to do a thing when they got back to the cabin. Caleb strung up the deer above the table, halfway through skinning it by the time she returned to him with a steaming hot chocolate and a coffee for herself, and he was determined to finish it himself. He wasn't trying to prove himself – he had already done that a hundred times over – but he got a kick out of helping Adele, giving her a break from her routine after seven years of skinning every buck herself.

Piling up a few cushions in the corner, she made herself comfortable and watched him work as though he had done it a thousand times. His brain was a sponge, sucking in and retaining everything she taught him, and hardly a cut was out of place as he removed the deer's hide and quartered it, carving the muscle into even slabs of meat. She couldn't tear her eyes from him, the way he worked so swiftly with the sharp knife, taking pride in every incision.

"You're really good at that," she said, slumped against the wall with her feet propped up on a log, her ankles crossed.

"Because you are," he said, "and you showed me."

"Well." Her smile grew, warmth spreading through her like a slow-burning fire. "I can't argue with that."

He bagged the meat up the way she had shown him, passing them to her to write the date on each pack of portions once she had finished her coffee, standing so close to him that she could feel his heat without touching him. There was a crackle of electricity in the air between them, the inches buzzing with unspoken words.

An actual buzz snapped Adele out of the reverie she had slipped into as they worked in perfect harmony. She didn't notice it at first, until her phone jittered again with a second buzz and she turned it over on the table. Her heart sank. Caleb glanced over, but he couldn't read the name on the screen.

"Who's buzzing?"

"Angus," she said. A text, not a call. Even so, she didn't want to open it.

"Don't see him," Caleb said.

"God, no. I don't want to," she muttered, her jaw tightening and her lips pinching together as she opened the first of the two messages, and then the second.

ANGUS: congratulations!

ANGUS: how does it feel?

She frowned at the messages. The more she stared, the more confused she was. When she read them out to Caleb, he frowned too.

"What does that mean?"

"No clue."

"Congratulations for what?"

"I have no idea," she said. The last thing she wanted to do was engage in a conversation with him, her blood boiling to see his name in her phone, but her interest was piqued.

ADELE: what

She didn't even grace him with a question mark. She didn't want him to get the wrong end of the stick, though he seemed to have been grasping at that his whole life. Caleb put down the piece of meat in his hand, a hunk of hind quarters that would make for a juicy steak.

"You're talking to him?"

"I just want to know what I'm being congratulated about," she said. She waited a moment, and then another. He was a slow texter. She knew that: she had watched him type infuriatingly slowly, his fingers hindered by the constant cigarette dangling from his fingers. His lungs had to be blackened lumps of coal by now, she was sure.

When her mobile buzzed again, she jumped.

ANGUS: i heard jade gave birth. didn't even know she was pregnant lol. i guess you're an auntie!

She hated that he texted as though they were friends, as though he had absolutely no clue of the torment he had put her through, the physical pain and the emotional torture as she had spent hour upon hour doubting and blaming herself. She hated more that it was he who broke the news, that no matter Jade's apologies, she hadn't thought to send a text.

Creighton had probably stopped her, she thought. He probably thought she would corrupt his child. That would be impossible: with him for a father, the baby had been dealt a terrible hand before she was even born.

"What did he say?" Caleb asked when he noticed that Adele had stared at the same short message for a full minute.

"Jade had the baby," she said. Her voice was flat.

"Why do you sound sad?"

"She didn't tell me," she said. "She was actually apologetic for not telling me she was pregnant in the first place, but now I'm hearing that she's had the baby from fucking Angus of all people? What the fuck?"

"Oh. You're angry."

"A bit," she muttered, biting her lip as she scrolled away from Angus and composed a message to Jade. It took a lot not to let her ire show through in her text, but she needed to keep her sister on her side. She had given up on Angus, no desire to give him anything, but Jade mattered more. Jade lived with the man who would decide if she lived or died.

ADELE: heard you had the baby! are you home?

The punctuation hurt. It was too enthusiastic. Too unlike her.

JADE: yes :) i am

A smile. That was an upgrade from her usual messages, if she bothered to send one at all. Adele's fingers flew over the keys as fast as they could when each held three or four different letters – and yet she still texted faster than Angus.

ADELE: what about creighton?

JADE: he's here

JADE: you can come over if you want

She looked up at Caleb, holding his gaze as she worked through the train chugging along the tracks of her mind. "I want to go and see her."

"Jade?" He made an effort not to let his face fall when he spoke her name.

She nodded. There was an urge she couldn't explain, a growing desperation to meet her niece. There weren't many people in the world that she could call family, but there was a little girl out there who could call her an aunt. "I want to see the baby. She's family."

"She is," he said.

"Creighton's with her," she said. "You'll be ok to stay here."

"Are you sure?"

"You're safer here than if you come with me, that's for sure."

He didn't seem convinced. She felt his doubt radiating off his skin; she felt her own beating out of her chest, but she couldn't take him with her. That was a certain death sentence. Even if Creighton had no evidence that he was a werewolf, his suspicions would shoot through the roof the second he realised she had kept Caleb a secret.

"This is something I have to do."

"I know," he said quickly. He didn't want her to think he didn't understand her desires when he got them implicitly. "I get that. She's family."

"Do you want to stay in the bunker while I'm gone? I'll be ... ninety minutes, tops."

He thought about for a moment, weighing up his options. The bunker was cold and dark and uncomfortable, but it was safe. "Yes, I do. If I can have light. And the blankets. And a hot chocolate."

"You just had one!" She laughed at his obsession. "Never mind. You move the chest and I'll make you a drink, and then I'm going to head out. Are you sure you don't mind?"

"It's your family," he said. "It's what you have to do."

She gave him a smile, her hand resting on his wrist. "Thank you."

*

Keir Manor was terrifying. The one time Adele had been inside, she had sworn that would be the last time. She hadn't thought that one day her sister would have children, that she would want to visit them. Part of her had always hoped that Jade would come to her senses, that she would see Creighton for who he was. But she hadn't. He had made sure of that.

The driveway snaked through the tall trees that lined the paved road, the snow shovelled and the tarmac salted. Carefully curving round the bends, her hands unconsciously tightened around the steering wheel as she neared the oval front lawn that the drive looped around. Two cars were tucked away in a layby. She would be able to drive all the way around when it was time to go, so she pulled up outside the front door and sucked in a deep breath.

The mansion seemed to stretch into the sky, pointed turrets reaching for the gods. It was overkill. The house had been modelled after Fallain Castle, an impressive fortress that stood at the top of the valley: it was arrogant, a blatant overcompensation from every Keir man who had lived within its walls. Adele couldn't help but wrinkle her nose as she climbed the five steps to the double-breasted front door, lifting the heavy brass knocker that had an impressive thud when it crashed into the wood.

Three knocks. Not too short; not too sharp. She didn't want to make a bad impression before she had even stepped through the door. On Jade, at least. She seemed to have made a bad impression on Caleb the moment she had entered the world.

He swung open the door, his eyes hard and his face sour. He held a glass in his grip, two inches of neat Scotch that he sipped when he saw her. She wanted to punch his lights out but she kept her fists to herself and plastered a smile over her tight lips.

"Hi," she said. The word alone was far more courtesy than he deserved. If looks could kill, she would have dropped dead as soon as he laid eyes on her. "Congratulations."

He said nothing, walking away from the front door once he had opened it for her. She pushed it shut.

"She's in the nursery," he said, not even turning to look at her.

"And that is where?"

"Upstairs."

Adele glowered at his back. "Fuck you too," she muttered. Upstairs could mean an awful lot. The house was four storeys tall, what felt like a hundred rooms on each one, and she had to restrain herself from stomping up each of the twenty-seven steps that carried her to the first floor. "Jade?"

"In here," came a voice from a few doors down. Adele followed the sound to a beautifully decorated nursery. Definitely Jade's doing. It didn't seem like Creighton could possibly care any less than he already did. A mobile hung over the elegant crib, the walls painted a soft shade of blue that verged on lilac. Everything in the room matched.

Jade was sitting in a rocking chair, cradling her sleeping baby. The girl was tiny, a little scrunched up thing with a wisp of black hair and a wrinkled nose.

"Hi," Adele said. She didn't want to fight. She didn't have it in her. The last thing she wanted to do was add to the poison that the baby was doomed to grow up with. Her anger fled her body at the sight of her miniature niece, swaddled in a white blanket.

"Hi," Jade said. Her voice was soft, her eyes trained on her daughter.

"I didn't realise you'd had the baby." Adele gingerly sat down on the edge of an armchair. The nursery alone had more seating than her entire cabin. "Angus texted me."

"I haven't had my phone on me for a few days," Jade said. "I would've messaged you, but it's been a bit crazy. Sorry. I wanted to tell you."

Every word sounded normal. Human. The way a sister was supposed to speak. It hit Adele right where it hurt.

"This is Fiona?"

"Mmm." Jade gently rocked in the chair. One of Fiona's tiny hands was wrapped around her finger, clutching her mother as she slept.

"How was it? Are you ok?"

"I'm ok. It was ... good, actually. Easier than I thought. Only six hours from start to end. She was ten days early, but she's absolutely perfect." For the first time, she tore her gaze from her baby and met Adele's eyes. "She's so perfect."

"She is," Adele said. She couldn't take that away from her sister: Fiona was a perfect little baby, even if she was named after a monster. "So she's ... three days old?"

"Mmhmm. She was born right before midnight on the thirtieth and we came home after lunch on the first."

"Was Creighton there?"

Jade hesitated. Her silence said everything. Adele's hatred of the man only deepened.

"How did you get there then?"

"He drove," she said.

"And he still managed to miss the birth of his child?"

"He had to take a call." Her argument was weak and she knew it, her eyes imploring Adele not to push it. "It's fine, really. I had a lovely nurse."

"You should have called me. I would have been with you," she said, indignance rising that she tried to suppress. She didn't want to wake the baby.

"I didn't think you'd want to be there," Jade said. So she had considered it. "Everything's fine. She's here now, we're home. Everything's fine."

"Creighton doesn't seem fine," Adele muttered. "What's his problem? For a new father, he doesn't seem very celebratory."

Jade sighed, her eyes dropping to her daughter once more. Shifting her in her arms, she breathed in the sweet scent of her soft head and closed her eyes. "He wanted a boy," she murmured.

"Jesus Christ, are you kidding me?"

"It's fine, Adele. Everything's fine."

"I feel like you've said that too many times for me to believe it," Adele said. The words didn't come from a place of hate, but one of concern. "Jade ... seriously, are you ok?"

She smiled and nodded, enrapt by her child. "We'll be ok," she said, stroking Fiona's cheek. "We're going to be just fine."

*

The relief that flooded Adele when she made it back home in the dark was indescribable, her headlights casting a halo around the cabin. When she took Caleb's hand, helping him out of the bunker, that relief quadrupled. When he hugged her, she sank against him and held onto him, her hands splayed over his back. He was calm, his heart slow and steady, and the reliable beat helped to soothe her own.

"Are you ok?" he asked as he held her.

"Mmhmm."

"Is Jade ok?" The question was a little more tentative, forcing himself to care for the woman who had tried to end his life.

"Mmhmm."

"And the baby?"

"Mmhmm."

"Where did your words go?"

"Sorry. I just ... I don't know." She rested her forehead against his chest and sighed. "Let's go inside. I need a drink."

They drank. They ate. They ate a little more, and they talked for a while. Nothing too serious. Nothing that mattered. They talked about deer and hunting, about fishing in the summer and berries in the spring. As night fell, so did Adele's pulse, slowly retreating back to normal as Caleb distracted her busy mind with the minutiae of life

He built a fire in the grate, carefully stacking the kindling the way he had seen Adele do it, lighting the centre before he added thicker logs around the outside and stoked up the flames with the bellows. When he sat down in front of the hearth, she sat beside him with her hands wrapped around a glass of her homemade cider, relishing in the tang of the alcoholic apple.

Her eyes fell on his hands, clasped in his lap. She traced her gaze over his knuckles and his wrists, climbing up to his pecs stretching his t-shirt across his chest. Stubble dotted his neck and his chin, across his jaw and his cheeks; his hair fell to his strong shoulders in scruffy waves. His soulful expression was awaiting her gaze when she met his eye and her heart sped up, her skin prickling with a spark that burned harder the longer she stared.

She shifted closer. He held her when her log toppled; he steadied her with a hand on her waist, his gentle touch awakening a swarm of butterflies. His hand didn't move but she did, her fingers tracing the warm curve of his neck. Instinct took over as though there was a hand on her back pushing her closer to him, easing her into his embrace. She tilted her head back, her chin brushing against his. The stubble tickled her. She could hear his breath, the warmth of his exhalation.

"I..." she began, but she didn't know what was supposed to come next. The end of the sentence ran away from her along with her train of thought.

His hand mirrored her position, moving to her neck. His thumb grazed her skin. His voice dropped. "Can I kiss you?"

She nodded, hardly moving her head, and she closed her eyes. When his lips met hers, her whole body burst into flames. His nose pressed into her cheek, his lips soft and his hands warm, and all she could hear was the pound of her heart in her head as though her blood was going to burst out of her eardrums.

There was no force in the way he kissed her, no desperation despite the years he had waited to taste her lips. He held her as though she was made of china, his kiss a gentle nudge that had her burning. Fireworks popped in her stomach as though it was New Year's Eve, every overwhelming sensation crushing her until she gasped. A thousand jolts, straight to her heart.

"Was that ok?" he asked. He already knew it was. He could feel the flutter in her chest, the clamour of thoughts crashing into her mind, the shake of her hand.

"That was ok," she said, a tremor in her voice. She rested her forehead against his, their noses pressed together, and her hand dropped to his shoulder. "That was very ok."

They didn't move for a few minutes, resting in front of the heat until exhaustion crashed over her like a vengeful wave and rolled through every fibre of her being. When she stood, she could hardly carry herself on her weary feet.

"Time for bed," she murmured, her hand lingering on Caleb's shoulder before she stepped away and her fingers dropped. He stood too, following her down the hallway.

"Goodnight, Adele," he said, his voice soft when he reached his room. She didn't return the blessing. Instead, she took his hand and led him to her room. He didn't watch as she changed into her pyjamas, averting his gaze until she slipped between the sheets and left a space for him. The mattress dipped when he sat down, the bed creaking when he lay beside her.

Only the moon illuminated the room, casting its soft glow over the space between their bodies. A cloud passed across the sky. The light faded. The gap closed. They were magnets, drawn to each other with an invisible pull that couldn't be broken when they were so close. He curled around her like a coat of armour, his arm around her like a shield. When the moon return, it danced over the dimple in his cheek and settled on her sleeping smile.

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double update . . . maybe! i finished this at 4:15 and for once, i actually held onto a chapter - i figured you'd all be asleep! the one you've all been waiting for, huh? how did you like that?

thoughts on creighton?

jade?

caleb?