“Why are you like this?” I murmured, the question escaping before I could cage it.
“Like what?”
“Accepting of my chaos. You hated me on sight.”
“I hated the idea of you,” he corrected, his voice a low rumble. “Some random human variant added to our team. And then I saw you…” He let out a long sigh, his thumb stroking my jaw. “Like a puppy who’d been kicked too many times, but was still trying to wag its tail.”
I snorted and shoved at his shoulder. “Jerk. I’m not a damn puppy.”
“Seriously, though. I never expected my new partner to be my mate. I knew that first day in the SED lobby.”
“Is that good or bad?”
He looked thoughtful. “I never expected to find my mate at all.”
“And then you got stuck with a necromancer.”
“You’re more than your magic, Jude. Do you think I’m just a cat?”
“Ha. No. I mean, I love snuggling with Peanut Butter, but I haven’t spent the last few hours trying to figure out how to get him alone for some action.”
Angel barked out a laugh, the sound rich and unguarded. “I sure hope not.”
He slid off the bed in one fluid, shifter like motion and held his hand out to me. “But for the record, that particular problem is already solved. Luca left us the key to the roof deck.”
“There’s a roof deck?” My mind instantly went to the wild, pulsing colors of the Veil’s night sky. Seeing that chaotic beauty from an open, high place, with Angel, felt less like a retreat and more like a claim.
“It’s limited access. Which means we’ll have it all to ourselves.”
His words hung in the air; a quiet promise that made my breath catch. A few long seconds stretched between us as he waited for me to take his hand. I reached for it, leaving the book on the bed, and with it all the struggles of the last few weeks. Was it too much to want to focus on him, and this new thing between us? Even if it was only for a few minutes.
I slid my hand into his, slotting my fingers in his grasp; his grip firm and steady. He didn’t drag me away, simply led me to the door to slip on my shoes, not caring that neither of us were fit for company. The threads between us pulsed in time to our heartbeats, faint but willing to clarify if I stared at them a breath too long.
“How private is it?” I wondered, hoping to have him completely naked in a few minutes so I could study his divine body.
“It will be just us,” Angel promised. “Warded and all.”
“Sounds amazing,” I said as I let him lead me out the door. The long, wide hall stretched silent and empty, though with his hand in mine, I couldn’t have cared if anyone saw us darting through the remodeled shopping mall to a hidden side door that led up a set of stairs.
As he pulled the door open, a cool draft carried the faint, electric scent of the Veil’s magic; part static, part wild energy. I took a deep breath, feeling like I could finally breathe. A few weeks ago, I’d have been terrified to step out into the pulsing energy of the Veil’s night sky, but now it almost felt like home. Or maybe that was the company.
He paused on the threshold, the electric starlight catching gold flecks in his eyes. “If I repeat your words back to you,” he asked, his voice low and steady, “will you freak out?”
My mind reeled, parsing through what he could mean in a thousand ways, but landing only on the fact that he meantI love you.“It’s not too soon?” I whispered, the words fragile.
“I’ve already said it in a dozen small ways,” he said.
He had, and I’d been replaying them in my mind, denying he meant it. “Because we’re mated? This bond thing?” I asked, waving vaguely at the threads that tied us together.
“A single strand brought us together,” Angel agreed. “But there’s more now, right?”
I nodded. The gold thread had thickened, and easily a dozen others just like it had woven themselves into a small pattern that had yet to be defined.
He pressed my palm over his heart. The steady, strong beat of it grounded my frantic pulse. “I love you, Jude.”
The words settled deep, a warmth spreading through my chest. “It still feels new. Like the pattern isn’t finished.”Fragile.
“It’s not,” he said, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “And it might never be complete. A perfect, finished tapestry is a dead thing, locked in a museum. Ours?” He glanced down at thespace between us, as if he could see the same shimmering web I could. “Ours is alive and messy. We’ll add new threads, we’ll snag on old hurts, and we’ll weave them in, too. That’s the point. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about being ours. Every moment we spend together adds more dimension and strengthens the bond.”
