He Signed My Freedom Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 20
After graduation, he had joined the Tidewatch treatment center, specializing in wolfsbane exposure and shift injuries.
We had only been acquaintances back at the academy. I never expected to see him again here.
“This is Chloe.” He gently patted the girl’s back. “My sister’s daughter.”
Chloe peeked out from over his shoulder and said softly, “Hello, Evelyn.”
I crouched down to her level.
“Hello. What kind of book are you looking for?”
She stared at my face, then suddenly reached out and gently touched the corner of my brow.
“You look a lot like my mom.”
Something in Elias’s expression shifted.
“I’m sorry. Her mother passed away a few years ago during a border rescue.”
My chest tightened.
This child had lost her mother, yet she had never treated someone’s love as a guarantee the way Noah and Iris had.
“It’s okay.” I ruffled her hair gently. “We have lots of picture books here. Do you like stars, or the sea?”
Chloe picked a story about a lighthouse guiding ships at night.
For the next half hour, I sat by the window and read to her. She was nervous at first, but she gradually edged closer until she was holding on to my fingers.
Elias stood on the other side of the shelves, watching quietly without interrupting.
When he came to pay, he said, “Chloe is usually very wary of unfamiliar scents, but she trusts you.”
I had noticed that, too.
When this child came close, Ember felt no urge to be on guard. Instead, she eased a tightness in my shoulders that had been there for years.
“Can we come again?” Chloe asked.
“Of course.”
Elias carried her back out into the rain. Chloe leaned over his shoulder and kept waving at me until they disappeared around the corner.
Standing in the doorway, I felt for the first time that Tidewatch was no longer just a place I had fled to.
It was beginning to feel like somewhere I could live.