Connor’s hand tightens around mine, grounding me when everything else feels like it’s spinning out of control.
I think about Robbie’s text messages. About sleeping in my car at rest stops. About the look in Connor’s eyes when he found me having a panic attack on my office floor, and Luna saying that sometimes what we fear most is exactly what we need.
“I do,” I hear myself say.
The words feel foreign in my mouth, like I’m speaking a language I don’t understand. But they’re out now, impossible to take back.
Amelia nods and begins the final incantation in a language I don’t recognize. Ancient words that seem to vibrate through the ground and up through my bones. She takes a ceremonial knife from her belt—a beautiful thing with a carved bone handle—and makes a small cut across Connor’s palm, then mine. The sting barely registers before she presses our bleeding hands together.
“Blood to blood,” Amelia intones. “Life to life. What was separate is now one.”
Heat floods through me where our palms meet. Not painful exactly, but overwhelming. Like something is rewiring inside my chest, creating connections that weren’t there before. I gasp, and Connor’s free hand moves to my waist, steadying me as the sensation intensifies and spreads through my entire body.
“It’s the bond,” he mumbles close to my ear. “Just breathe through it. I’ve got you.”
The heat spreads from my hand up my arm and into my chest, settling somewhere near my heart. For a moment, I swear I can feel Connor’s presence in my mind—not thoughts exactly, but emotions. Determination. Fear. Protectiveness. Hope and longing or both.
Then Amelia releases our joined hands, and the sensation fades to a dull hum beneath my skin. A connection that wasn’t there before, thrumming quietly in the background of my awareness.
“The bond is sealed,” Amelia announces. “Connor and Fern are now mated in the eyes of the pack and the spirits who guide us.”
The pack erupts in cheers and howls, and the sound echoes through the forest before bouncing back from distant hills. I stand frozen as the noise barrels into me.
That’s it? That’s the ceremony?
I look up at Connor and find him watching me with those blue eyes. “That wasn’t so bad,” I start to say.
Before I can finish the thought, he cups my face in both hands and kisses me.
The world narrows to the press of his mouth against mine and the heat of his palms on my cheeks. His skin burns against mine—not painfully, but noticeably, like standing too close to a fire on a winter night. Shifters run hot, Skylar mentioned once. I didn’t understand what she meant until now, until Connor’s warmth seeps into my bones and chases away the chill I’ve been carrying for months.
His lips are soft despite the intensity with which he claims mine, moving with a confidence that makes my knees weak. One hand slides from my face into my hair, scattering pins and flowers as his fingers thread through the strands. The other hand travels down to the small of my back, pulling me closer until no space remains between our bodies.
I should push him away. Should remind him that I agreed to the ceremony, not to this. But the heat of him seeps into my body, melting something frozen inside me, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel warm all the way through.
For just a second, I don’t fight it. I kiss him back and let myself feel safe in his arms.
Connor seems to take my response as permission. His hand at my back nudges me even closer, and suddenly, my feet leave the ground as he lifts me effortlessly. I make a startled sound against his mouth, but he doesn’t stop kissing me as he turns and walks toward the edge of the clearing.
“Connor,” I manage to gasp when he finally breaks the kiss. “What are you doing?”
“Taking my mate somewhere private.” His voice has dropped to something almost like a growl, and his eyes have that amber glow again.
The pack is cheering louder now, whooping and calling out encouragements that make my face burn. Luna catches my eye and grins, giving me an enthusiastic thumbs up.
I should demand he put me down and let me walk on my own two feet, but there’s something in the way he holds me—careful despite his strength, protective despite the possessiveness—that makes me pause.
This isn’t Robbie grabbing me in anger. This isn’t being thrown over someone’s shoulder in fury and frustration.
This is… different. Gentler. Like I’m something precious he wants to keep safe.
Connor carries me into the trees as the sounds of celebration fade behind us, and I realize with a strange mix of terror and relief that there’s no going back now.
The bond is sealed. I’m his mate.
Chapter 12 - Connor
I carry her deeper into the forest until the sounds of celebration fade to nothing.
