I let out a soft breath.
Maybe I'd screwed something else up.
"Is this about the wolf situation?"
"No. Larson wants to try to fix the rain again."
Oh.
This was about the call I'd overheard but hadn't really had time to process.
I'd known it was coming since Larson unraveled his previous attempt at the magic, but I wasn't sure if Niall had. Or if maybe he'd just tried not to think about it.
"He and Rob have worked on the spell together longer than they’vebeentogether. Rob's good. Really fucking good. Larson is too. We're just in uncharted territory, with them trying to fix the wards. It should be fine," Niall said.
I nodded.
"There's something I haven't told you." He stared out at the plants, clenching his jaw for a few moments. "About that night."
I tried not to let my walls go up a little more, but they did anyway. I believed him, but that was still new.
"Larson told me he had the spell ready a few days earlier. That section of the wards is already tied to you, as you know, so they can't use another fae to edit it. It has to go through you. We both knew that. But he told me the spell was ready, and I told him no. I told him he'd have to figure out another way, because I didn't want my twin brother using magic on the woman I loved. He didn't like it, but he agreed."
Niall shook his head. "I had planned on asking you to mate with me a few days later. He knew about it. I thought he'd just… give up. I should've known better. Fixing the fucking rain was all Lars focused on, for decades and decades. He wasn't going to push me, but he wasn't going to let go."
My eyes widened slightly. "That's why he tried to tie the magic to himself. Because you turned him down."
"Yeah. He thought it was a small fix that wouldn't require much energy. It was my fault that he tried to anchor it to himself. It could've worked if he tied it to you from the start. It probably would've. I was stubborn, and possessive, and fucking terrified, and it could've cost me the only two people in this world who mean anything to me."
There it was.
The final piece in the puzzle.
The reason he hadn't tried to force his way back into my life. The reason he had stayed away, even though he thought we were fated.
Not because he thought I nearly died, intentionally risked my life, or chose Larson over me—because he blamed himself for the fact that Larson and I had been in that position at all.
"I didn't say no this time, when he asked. I know it's not my place. It should never have been my place. So many things are so fucked up, and he wants to do it again, and I just..." He dragged a hand through his wild curls. "I can't do it again, Liv. I can't make it through that again. I don't evenhaveyou, and I still can't fucking lose you again."
I climbed onto his lap, taking his face in my hands as my knees met the tile on either side of his thighs.
"You have me. I don't know how you felt my magic, but I believe you. You're not going to lose me again, Niall."
"We don't even know if we're fucking fated mates."
"We don't," I agreed. "But you can sense my magic in a way no one else can."
He nodded, moving my hands with him.
"And you don't even flinch when I throw a bunch of magic at you. I should've noticed that when we were together before. Did you even feel it when I zapped your thigh earlier?"
"It felt similar to a yank on my hair. The pleasurable kind of pain."
"Well, it shouldn't."
"You've thought that before."
"I don't care what I've thought before. I care what I think right now. And right now, I think we honestly might be fated mates. And I think that if we're not, you can handle my magic so well that it doesn't even matter." I pressed my forehead to his.
