Thankfully, it works, and the fire in her eyes slowly dims.
“Iain, please answer Aurora’s question if you can. I’m curious about this myself,” I say to the wrakh, while keeping my eyes on Aurora.
“Huh? What?” Iain mutters, shaking his head like his soul took a wrong turn and had to sprint back into his body.
“Oh, free will and all that fuckery. Look, little blackbird, I can only tell you what my kairda knew. What I’ve seen. You do get choices. Plenty of ‘em. Even about your threads. Hate to break it to ya, Ez, but you weren’t the only option. She could’ve picked some nice, boring human. Plenty of ‘em had their shot,” Iain says as a wide, genuine smile spreads across his face.
The growl bubbling in the back of my throat earns a chuckle from the wrakh.
He’s gloating. Painting a picture of a quiet life she’ll never have. A mortal man. A garden. A child. And none of that includes me.
He wants me to feel like a mistake, like I’m the thing that ruined her chance at peace.
Fuck that.
She didn’t choose safety. She chose me.
And I will tear the spine from anyone who makes her question that.
Iain speaks again, dragging me back from the edge.
“But you found each other and sort of cosmically agreed that the thread between you two would be unbreakable. Or … something like that. It’s cosmic shite. We can’t know every fucking detail.”
Aurora hums next to me, obviously thinking about everything Iain just told us.
“That satisfy your little hellfire heart?” Iain huffs, glancing around. “Pretty sure I’ve got a book somewhere that might have information about the Daughters. The spell work on you looks familiar.”
Iain stumbles out of the kitchen, leaving us alone for the first time since early this morning.
Aurora tightly clasps her hands together and lays them in her lap. My hand covers hers while I move my thumb in gentle circles, hoping this small gesture helps her find some peace.
When she looks up at me, tears threaten to fall from her eyes, and it takes everything in me not to burn this shitty house down.
That bald motherfucker made her cry.
I lay my head on Aurora’s shoulder and nuzzle her bruised neck, careful not to make the pain worse.
“Little lupine, please talk to me. I know this is a lot, but I need to know you’re well.”
Sitting back, I gently grab her chin and turn her face toward me. Instead of the sadness or despair I expected, I’m greeted with her bright, beautiful smile.
“I was terrified my feelings weren’t mine. That some cosmic asshole decided we should be together, and we had no choice or say in the matter. But that’s not the case at all, if Iain’s right. I had choices, and you had choices, but we found each other, here and now, and chose each other. That makes me … happy, I guess.”
Leaning forward again, I gently kiss up her neck, then nip along her jawline, just before softly grazing my lips against hers.
“I would choose you every time, Aurora. Every single time,” I whisper against her mouth.
She presses her lips to mine, a kiss so slow, so soft, and so perfect that my shadows still around us, desperate to feel what I’m feeling.
My cock throbs and my mind blanks. I want to sink into her and never come back.
“Fucking hell! You’d think I’d know better than to leave two perma-threads alone in a room together. I found your fucking book. Now stop sucking on the queen’s tongue!” Iain exclaims as he walks back into the room with a very worn, very dusty book in his hands.
He called her “queen” without hesitation … without mockery.
And coming from him? That says everything.
Iain hands the coffee-stained notebook to Aurora, then leans against the counter. He waves his hands in a slow circular motion, and a mug materializes in his palm—matte black, chipped along the rim, and emblazoned in rough white lettering: “Wrakh me, Daddy.”
