He smiles, that wide boyish smile of his. “I love you, Juniper. And I wanted to ask you if you’d do me the honor of being my mate?”
My stuttering heart stops, skipping beat after beat, and for a moment, I’m speechless. Joy bursts through me, bright and effervescent, and I can’t find the words to express that to the alpha I love so dearly, so completely. The alpha who’s been by my side since I faced down my locked magic. He stood by me then, and he stands by me now, my alpha who gives me the most wicked kisses, whose embrace makes me feel safe and loved.
Luca cringes, his smile falling. “No?”
“Yes!” I cry, throwing my arms around his neck. “Oh saints, yes. Yes.”
“Oh, thank fuck. Princess, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” he gripes, but he’s smiling again, spinning us around on the ice, beneath the silvery moon at the fourth place on his “Places to Explore with Juniper” list.
“I love you,” I murmur, my lips brushing against his.
“Juniper,” he says. “You’ve made me the happiest alpha in the world.”
* * *
We stayon the lake a while longer, arm in arm, but we stop to kiss more than we skate, and finally Luca skates for the shore, pulling me along behind him.
After putting our boots back on, we hike back up the gravel path.
Luca gives Ian and Marcus a cheeky thumbs up and Marcus nods.
“They knew?!”
Luca smirks. “Of course they knew. I’ve been planning this for weeks. Since the day after Yule.”
Since the moment I took his hands in mine and told him we could be mated, that we could be a real pack.
Luca waves to the other two alphas and Marcus calls out the window, “Stargaze as long as you want. We’ll be up the road a bit, so Ian’s reading light doesn’t bother you.”
“It’s your reading light, too,” Ian says waspishly, but he has a smile just for me, because he knew: he knew Luca wanted to mate me and he wanted this buoyant, beautiful, impossible joy for me.
Luca grabs a bundle of blankets and hops up into the bed of his pickup as Marcus and Ian drive up the road, and once Luca has laid out the blankets and cast a warming spell, he hoists me up, right onto the very first blanket we stargazed on the night he told me he wanted to burn the world to the ground, all so he could rebuild a world where I never doubted I belonged. The night when the Perseids fell down around us and he promised that whatever I wished for on the star that shot across the sky, we’d make it happen.
We settle in, and I cuddle up against him, breathing in his scent of red wine and cherries.
“We’re too late for the Quadrantids, unfortunately. We’d have to be damn lucky to catch a shooting star tonight, but I’m willing to stick it out.”
“I don’t need a shooting star to wish on, Luca. Not tonight.”
He wraps his arm around me and holds me close, and we split the thermos of cocoa and share a hundred chocolatey kisses. When the cocoa is gone, and snowy storm clouds roll in across the night sky, I turn in his arms.
“Take me home and mate me, my alpha? Make me yours.”
He steals one more kiss. “Mine,” he swears. “Forever mine”
CHAPTER34
By the time we get back to the pack house, Cassian and Simon have already gone to bed in their room.
I realize they were in on this, too, and for just a moment, my dizzying love for Luca is pierced by a flash of the deepest love for Cassian, my mate who wants me to have my perfect pack.
Luca and I kiss as we stumble up the stairs and fall into my nest without even taking our winter coats off.
We laugh with the realization, and he grins that heart-stopping smile that promises me hours of pleasure. “One more thing to slowly strip off your beautiful body.” He plucks my black cat hat off my head and gently sets it outside my nest, before dropping a kiss on my forehead.
I whine, wanting to shuck my coat off and my sweater with it, wanting to shed every stitch of clothing so I can feel my alpha’s skin against my own.
“My impatient princess,” he teases, pulling one mitten off and pressing a kiss to my palm.
