I am, but your bribe is working and you’re back at the moment. I feel better. Just so you know. I’m afraid too. Afraid I won’t be good enough for you, or that I will harm you without understanding why. But I'm mostly afraid that you have the power to break me completely.
“Why didn't you tell me we were mates when we first met?”
You didn't need a mate, only a friend, and that was part of what I loved about you. And..
He paused, but more life came back into his eyes as regret filled them.
We got so tangled up in me reclaiming the crown, in the Old Magic returning. I had to protect my people if you broke the bond completely.
That was understandable. I hadn’t exactly been an open book with my feelings but I knew without a doubt I needed to be. Declan would always keep them safe. More than that, he would help me put my priorities in order. Rest meant I would use my good days to my best advantage.Opening my heart meant Declan would be mine, fully mine, in a way that I knew he could, but I never let him. We were both jumping off an enormous cliff but we were doing it together. I trusted him. I did. He would literally rather be a monster in the woods than control my life.
“I might not need a mate but I think I might want one. We can make this work, right? I'll find a way not to be a burden.”
The trees bent away from us as a growl came into his voice.
Stop!
The shift from him wrapped around the rock to wrapped around me was so sudden I almost threw up. He buried his human-sized face in my hair.
“You could never be a burden. Is Ned a burden?”
The weight of him spread bliss over my skin. Like home. I didn’t exactly comprehend how to be the mate he needed, but I was selfish. I couldn’t give this up.
“How dare you! Ned is everything.”
My hands shook as I stroked them through his hair. How did a few hours apart feel like a lifetime?
He sifted his hands through my curls in return. “He’s not out in the street or hunting the forest and the most he contributes are soulful looks. We take care of everyone in the pack, no matter how they contribute.”
“I can't be Ned. I need to do something with my life,” I said. Long stretches of idleness were beyondme.
“I get it. There is space somewhere in the middle. How about ruling Nightfell with me?”
“If you take ‘rule’ to mean ‘cook for an unruly pack of wolves’ then sure.” I shrugged, still uncomfortable, but I would try for him.
“They don’t expect us to be anything that we aren’t, Honey. We get to be King and Queen in our own way. If you need a break, you take one,” he said into my hair. “If you want to lounge in your wolf for a day, you can do that too.”
“I don’t know how to do that, but being able to pick apart scents with a better nose could be appealing.” Turning into the world’s most awkward wolf had to have benefits, right?
He drew back to look at me, his eyes filling with mischief. “You can practice with me. I’ll make you a list of what to do. No food in the forest will be safe from you.”
A laugh squeaked out of me because Declan said it with such genuine excitement that the idea pulled me in. Maybe retreating into a quieter mind on bad days wouldn’t be such a hardship. A fur coat fit this winter weather. My shiver shook us both.
“Thank you for choosing me.” His hugs were the best I’d ever had. “I’m so glad you came back.”
My face twitched. I was going to be terrible at this, but I would make the effort for him. “My life unfolded in such brilliance…” I mumbled, my strangled voice coming out flat. I cleared my throat and tried again, rushing through it. “My-life-unfolded-in-such-brilliance…”
Declan pulled back and put his thumbs under my chin to force me to look up at him.
I tried again. “The moment I met you I was blinded, stunned and perhaps…”
Tears formed in his sparkling eyes, the same that were rolling down my cheeks to his thumbs.
“That perhaps I forgot to tell you, you're my everything.”
His smooth tongue licked away my tears. I didn’t know who kissed whom first, but it hardly mattered. Our mouths came together to say:I’m sorry. Be with me.
“No more fear,” Declan said between pants.
