Niall touched or brushed up against me every chance he got, but he would've done that even before it affected me like it did now.
Larson sent us and the other fae royals a group message to let us know that he'd be ready to restart the spell in a few days. Merrily and Darius had volunteered to help.
After doing the math, I realized I had two months' worth of work to do at the orchard if we worked every other day, so the next morning, we picked up drinks and breakfast from the Werewolf Cafe and went back there.
Niall followed me around in his gigantic grizzly form all day. With his furry side touching me, my nose didn't bleed, and my head didn't ache.
Gwen showed up alone with the lunch we ordered, and when she realized we were mated, she gave us a wide-eyedcongratulations. She clearly thought we were insane.
We were, so her judgment didn't particularly matter.
We spent the next day moving stuff from Niall's studio in the Spellcaster Sector to the one in the house. Including a stack of nude portraits of me. He said they were going on the home studio's walls whether I wanted them there or not.
I didn't protest. I had no problem with him getting horny and coming to find me while he was working.
A few more days passed like a dream, between the orchard and the scent of paint that now lingered in my house again.
Ourhouse.
He was mine, and it was so fucking surreal.
After tradingtexts back and forth, we headed over to Merrily's place. We were meeting Larson, Rob, and Darius there, for the sake of her comfort.
Now that Niall and I were mated, my own comfort was pretty much guaranteed, and her magic was a pain in the ass.
I filled Niall in on the drama between Merrily and Grayson Darke—I hadn't told him they were fated while we were together, because he didn't know about fated mates then—while we walked there, hand in hand.
We could've driven, but I kind of missed running, and my feet were fully healed so Niall didn't protest. It was nice to move my body even when my magic didn't force me to.
Niall and I were the first ones there, so the door was locked. I typed the code in, knowing Merrily wouldn't get up to answer the door any more than Callum did, even now that he had Kat.
"Do you know what tomorrow is?"Niall asked me mentally, as I opened the door.
It was our original anniversary. The day we met at an art gallery, seven years earlier.
When I explained to him that my magic was driving me crazy and needed an outlet, we had sex in a bathroom for the first time. He wrote his phone number on my arm with a pen we found in there, and told me to call him the next time my magic was bothering me.
I'd called him the next day.
And the next.
And the next.
We'd hardly been apart, after that.
"Of course I remember. I just wasn't sure whether or not you'd want to do anything about it. We could celebrate the mating anniversary, instead."
"No. Our relationship isn't about fate, Livvy."
It was about two people who loved being around each other. The chemistry we had. Thefunwe had.
"Do we call it our second fifth anniversary, our sixth anniversary, or our seventh?"I wondered. We'd broken up a week after our fifth, so neither label was accurate.
"I still painted you on the sixth, so I'm sticking with seventh."
My lips curved.
Of course he had, and of course he was. Niall had considered us together even when we weren't.
