Page 59 of Ready or Knot

“Faedra?” Jude asks. “You alright?”

I glance up at him, putting the camera in my lap with a shrug.

“Tired,” I say, and he nods.

Logan hums, running his hand down my arm and kissing my shoulder. “Let’s skip the card game tonight then.”

Carter reaches across the bowls, squeezing my fingers and running his thumb across my knuckles. My scent permeates around us all, though not as strongly as it has been the last few days. Carter glances at the others, an unspoken conversation happening in the span of seconds, and then lets go of my hand, returning to the dinner, mixing in the last couple ingredients. Logan pulls two forks from his pocket and hands one to Carter.

“Eat,” Jude murmurs, handing me one of the bowls and a fork before taking a bite himself. “And then you can sleep with Carter.”

Twenty-Three

CARTER

Jude brushes the worst of the dried mud off his pants before switching into the pair of sweats laid out on the camp chair. Logan pulls Faedra’s toiletry bags from her pack and tosses them to me before putting her pack over his shoulder.

Glancing at Jude, he asks, “Your arm doing ok?”

I raise an eyebrow, looking at Jude more closely. He twists his arm, showing a nasty set of scratches along his left forearm. They’re scabbed at this point and relatively clean, clearly taken care of at some point.

“Yeah, they’re fine,” he says, waving Logan on. “I don’t need anything from the kit.”

Logan nods and then walks out past camp, his headlamp illuminating a narrow patch of land in from of him. While he works to tie out Faedra’s pack with ours, I get ready for bed, rolling my jeans to stick in the bottom of my sleeping bag along with the rest of my clothes for tomorrow.

“You hear back from the jeweler?” Jude asks when I’m finished, stretching his neck and then his shoulders.

“He’s on retainer for once we decide what we want,” I say, following his lead and stretching.

Logan laughs as he comes back to camp. “I’ve trained you so well,” he jokes, laughing. “It only took, what, six years?”

Jude rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitches, giving him away, and Logan laughs harder.

“What were you saying about the jeweler?” Logan asks, dropping into one of the chairs and pulling his Kindle. Jude doesn’t say a word as he does the same, the tension slowly bleeding out from him as the moments pass. I sit and look up at the sky, letting myself feel small under the mass of stars, the complexity of it all soothing me. After a few minutes, I give Logan the same answer I gave Jude.

He hums, running a hand through his hair. “Still like the idea of giving her a stacking ring for each of us. They’re the traditional choice.” He pauses and runs his hand through his hair. “They can be thin so there’s not as much bulk. Or she could wear them on a necklace.”

Jude grunts. “Her family is all Betas. I think it’s a good idea to offer her a traditional engagement ring, too, even if it doesn’t signify an engagement for us,” he says without glancing up. Logan frowns, tilting his Kindle down.

I clear my throat. “We could do both. There’s no rulebook saying it has to be one or the other. And it’s not like funds are a concern.”

Jude nods, tapping his knee. “If we do stackers, let’s make them those ones with the gems laid all the way around. She loves color.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

The silence between us is comfortable, and I slowly sink into our normal routine, the time passing amicably. When I’m about to head to bed, Logan says, “Let’s do the engagement ring. There’ll be lots of time to give her pieces from each of us if we want.”

I nod and then stand up, turning for the tent. “Once we’re back, I’ll have him come up with a few ideas based on some of the pieces she already has. Hopefully it’ll be ready before we have to submit the paperwork with the Council.”

* * *

JUDE

The stillness just before dawn is my favorite part of these backpacking trips. The air bites at my face as I pull the packs down from where we tied them out overnight and walk them back to the camp. I’m careful to keep Faedra’s things organized as I grab the instant coffee from her pack. I set about filtering the last batch of water Logan had grabbed before going to bed and then set a bowl of it to boil over a camp stove. I tilt my head back, looking at the lightening sky, and sigh.

Ten years.

Iris would have loved Faedra. She has that same tenacity, that spark in her eyes when someone offers up a challenge.