Alexios sniffs, leaning into my touch. “But you’remyhero, aren’t you?”
“Oh please.” Cael rolls his eyes.
Pollux snorts half a laugh into a piece of vegetarian something or other. Tofu, maybe. On a cracker. Mm, charming. I wonder if it was even cooked, or if it’s just a slab of raw mush beans.
“Guys, come on,” Ollie tries.
I look at the man and arch a brow. “This isbonding, is it not?”
He deflates. “Really?”
Cael, ever the peacekeeper, wraps an arm around Ollie’s shoulders and sighs. “Probably this isbondingwhen you are incurably incorrigible.”
Melting out of a dark shadow, Zylus braces his elbow against Cael’s other shoulder and smiles at me before purring in his silky smooth vampire voice, “Aren’t we all?”
Yes, precisely.
Excellent chap, Zylus, my brother inbest eyes here.
Blowing out a breath, Zahra trails from the other side of the room where all the non-fae were congregating, drops her human guise in favor of purple skin and stars, and hangs on top of Alexios’s head. “What’d I miss?”
“Castor’s antagonizing Cael, again,” Alexios murmurs. “He calls itbonding, and I think it’s good for them.”
“So, I’ve missed nothing, basically?” she asks.
He affirms.
“Castor?” Heather calls, igniting every last one of my nerves.
I turn to her and let the sight wash over me, cleansing me anew. “Yes, Mine?”
“Are we still planning to get married tonight?” She points. “Willow’s asking. She says most good romance stories end with a wedding, and we can’t begin our happily ever after without it.”
My heart leaps.
“Don’t you want to be happy?” Willow goads.
Heather blushes.
Alana grins. “Heatherwants to be happy.”
You know something? Now that I’mreallythinking about it, I do believe that human woman was right. Itisgetting rather late, isn’t it?
Alexios frees a low whistle, so I nudge him off me, mutter, “Brat,” and begin making my way to my feather.
Cael’s voice stops me short. “You’re getting married tonight?”
Cocking a look back at the moth prince, I say, “Yes? I believe so. Why?”
Warmth fills him, overwhelming joy pouring off him in sheets. He leaves the friends he made in my absence to reach me, then he lifts his hand. Fingers cutting through my hair, he reels me into a hug. “Congratulations.”
Gaze wide, I lift my attention from his white robes to his soft features, and then I go very, very still, wondering ifthisis what he’s always looked like whenever he’s hugged me. It’s…for lack of a less accurate word…loving.
As though I am important.
And he believes it.
When he, of everyone here, has the most right not to.
