“Yes.” I met him thrust for thrust, and just when my euphoria tipped over the edge, he struck. I thought it would hurt. I thought I would cry or scream or thrash at the invasion, but it pushed my climax into overdrive. My skin erupted with heat, and my muscles clenched as waves of magic poured over us. His energy crashed into me, and mine reciprocated, yanking us both into a deep, exhilarating oblivion. I didn’t realize how empty I’d been until he filled every tormenting void, every crevice that had been throbbing with want, with need, of my mate.
“Fuck, Wyn,” he said, shoving himself inside me harder, faster, riding out his own orgasm. I felt it in my soul, building on mine, his pain and excitement and blinding love for me all bursting from him in a debilitating fury. “Fuck. Yes. Yes. Gods, you feel so good. I love you. I love you.”
“I love you,” I replied, and when his knot expanded inside me, locking us together, I sighed with a deep contentment I’d never before experienced. We were one. We were together. And we would nurture this tiny seed of adoration with everything in us.
He shifted our weight and rolled over, pulling me with him so I lay across his chest, my head under his chin, while we both panted back to reality.
“That was amazing.” He traced lazy circles up and down my spine, and I hummed at the gentle shocks of electricity buzzing through my molecules. “I never knew it would be like that. If I did, I would have mated you sooner.”
“Oh, hush,” I said, tilting my head to look up at him. “You didn’t know I was your mate. It happened when it was supposed to happen.”
“Hmm.” He made a non-committal noise, but I sensed his disbelief and perhaps something darker, something more sinister.
“What?” I sat up and balanced myself with my hands on his stomach. “What’s that?”
He ran his hands up my thighs and cupped my hips, rocking my pelvis so his knot brushed against the sensitive spot inside me. But a mischievous look danced in his eyes, and he bit his bottom lip with a grin.
“Perhaps I…” He moved up my waist to my breasts and brushed his thumbs over my nipples, more playing with me rather than trying to get a reaction. “Well, perhaps I always suspected there was more between us. Perhaps I always wanted more between us.”
I rolled my eyes and tutted through my teeth. “You always had someone else warming your bed, Fen. You didn’t think twice about me.”
“I cared about you, Wyn. Always.” Something nudged at the outskirts of my mind, like a visitor politely knocking at the door, asking to be let in.
I narrowed my eyes and opened the entry, gasping when a wave of his affection for me flooded my senses. Next came memories, visions playing on a projector screen of all the times he’d cradled our friendship in the palm of his oversized hand.
Him picking me up after I’d tripped over a rock and skinned my knee at the tender age of ten.
Flash forward a few years - him sitting next to me and wiping away my tears after a rotten first date had left me feeling dejected and alone.
Him and Mill chasing off an overinterested visitor from a neighboring MC.
Him ditching a one-night stand to drink beer and celebrate with me after my final healer certification.
The adoration in his chest when he’d opened his eyes after an attack and saw me standing over him, healing him, bringing him back to health.
Those moments didn’t look like the love we had finally grown into, but they were, without a doubt, declarations of the undying connection between us. And I counted myself blessed to have it with him.
“You’re perfect to me, little wolf,” he said. “And you always have been.”
I tried to reel back the tears, blinking my eyes to keep from crying, but they slipped over my cheeks anyway. He brushed them away and pulled me down on his chest to wrap his arms around me.
“Thank you, Fen,” I said. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you.” He kissed the top of my head, and we stayed like that until we both fell asleep, cocooned in the warmth of each other.
The new year would bring questions from the pack and certainly a raised eyebrow or two. But with Fen, I could face anything. He would take care of me. I would take care of him. And I understood my life differently now. Yes, being a healer was my life’s work. But this, too, was important. I was important, and having something for myself didn’t make me selfish or diminish what I did for the pack.
No, with him, I was stronger. With him, I could be the best version of myself. And I prayed I never did anything to screw it up.
We weren’t perfect people. There would be fights. There would be creases to iron out and long days where we suffered the worst of each other, but as long as we both tried, as long as we both showed up every day willing to fight for this, we’d make it.
I’d never been so sure of anything in my life.
CHAPTER 10
Fenris
We were officially mated under the new moon a month later, with Lyra at my side and Mill and Caleum next to her. Kodiak announced us to the pack, and we partied well into the early hours of the morning. Then, I carried my mate back to her our cabin and fucked her until my knot ached.
