Chapter 25 - Sera
I wake to find Reeyan’s arm draped across my waist like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
Sunlight streams through the windows, warming the tangled sheets wrapped around our legs.
My body aches in places I’m still getting used to feeling, a pleasant reminder of everything we did last night after the ceremony.
After we came back here, and made love without anger or fear between us.
Just the two of us, finally honest about what we wanted.
The mate bond pulses softly in my chest. Not overwhelming anymore. Just there. A constant presence that connects us without controlling either of us.
I turn my head on the pillow to study his face. Dark blond hair sticks up in every direction, and his mouth is slightly open as he breathes.
Mine, my wolf whispers with satisfaction.
Ours, I correct her. We’re partners now.
She doesn’t argue. Just settles contentedly inside me, closer than she’s ever been before. The curse suppressed our connection for my entire life. Now she’s simply part of me in a way that feels natural and right.
I reach up to touch Reeyan’s face, tracing the line of his jaw with one finger. His green eyes open immediately, focusing on me with such warmth that something behind my ribs squeezes.
“Morning,” he mumbles, voice rough from sleep.
“Morning.”
He pulls me closer until I’m tucked against his chest. I can hear his heartbeat, steady and strong beneath my ear. His hand strokes down my back in lazy circles that make me want to purr.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
I consider the question. My body is pleasantly exhausted. My emotions are…everything. Joy at waking up beside him. Contentment from the bond between us. A flutter of nervousness about what comes next. All of it vivid and real without any magical dampening.
“Full,” I finally answer. “Like I’m experiencing everything at maximum volume after a lifetime of muted sound.”
“Is it too much?”
“Sometimes. But I wouldn’t trade it for the curse’s control.” I tilt my head to look at him. “I cried yesterday watching sunset colors reflect off the packhouse windows. Just stood there crying because the oranges and pinks were so beautiful.”
His mouth curves into a smile. “You’ve always been able to see colors. What’s different now?”
“Before, I could acknowledge something was aesthetically pleasing. Now I feel it. The beauty doesn’t just exist outside me. It resonates inside me until I have to cry or laugh or do something with all that feeling.”
“That’s what emotions do when they’re not suppressed.”
I press my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heart beat against my hand. “How do people function like this? Everything is so much.”
“You learn. Your brain adjusts. Eventually, feeling everything won’t overwhelm you quite as badly.” He kisses the top of my head. “But you’ll still cry at sunsets sometimes. That’s just who you are now.”
“I like who I am now. Even when it’s scary.”
We lie there in comfortable quiet while morning sounds filter through the window. Birds calling to each other. The distant rumble of vehicles on the main road. Normal things that feel different now that I can appreciate them properly.
My stomach growls loud enough to make us both laugh.
“Breakfast,” Reeyan declares, starting to sit up.
I hook my leg over his waist and pull him back down. “Not yet. I want to talk about the transition plans first.”
He settles back against the pillows with his arms behind his head. “The Llewelyn pack. How they’re adjusting.”
“Some are handling it better than others.” I prop myself up on one elbow. “Caelan called me last night. She’s loving every minute of emotional freedom. But my mother…” I trail off, searching for words.
“Your mother?”
“She spent decades believing she was broken because she couldn’t express love the way she wanted to.
Now that the barrier is gone, she’s processing forty years of suppressed feelings.
She cried for three hours yesterday. Just cried and cried.
But when I checked on her before bed last night through a video call, she was smiling.
Said it felt like coming home to herself. ”
Reeyan reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. “Ash is organizing support groups with the psychics. The transition will be easier with help.”
“My mother already signed up. So did Thora and about a dozen other women. They’re choosing to heal together instead of suffering alone. That’s progress.”
“That’s your influence. You showed them vulnerability isn’t weakness.”
We discuss logistics for another twenty minutes. How to coordinate support systems across territories. Which psychics have the most experience with emotional healing. Whether Veva can create magical aids for the women experiencing the worst overwhelm.
“Matriarch Lydia called a pack meeting for tomorrow,” I tell him. “She wants everyone together to discuss how we move forward as a curse-free pack.”
“Will you be there?”
“She asked me to speak. Share my experience breaking the curse and adjusting to emotional freedom.” The thought makes my stomach flip with nerves. “Standing in front of my entire pack and admitting I was terrified the whole time isn’t exactly appealing.”
“You don’t have to tell them you were scared.”
“But I was. I am. And they need to know that being afraid doesn’t mean you’re weak. That vulnerability is part of being fully alive. Will you come with me? To the meeting?”
“You want me at a Llewelyn pack meeting?”
“I want my mate beside me when I address my people about the most important decision I’ve ever made.”
His eyes search my face like he’s looking for doubt or reluctance. He won’t find any. I’ve made my choice. He’s mine, and I’m not hiding that from anyone.
“I’ll be there,” he promises.
My stomach growls again, louder this time.
Reeyan grins. “Now, can we have breakfast?”
“Fine. But you’re cooking.”
“Deal.”
He climbs out of bed, completely unselfconscious about his nakedness. I watch him pull on sweatpants, admiring the play of muscles across his back and shoulders. My body warms despite the soreness, wanting him again already.
He catches me staring and raises an eyebrow. “See something you like?”
“Maybe.”
“Breakfast first. Then we can revisit that look you’re giving me.”
I throw a pillow at him. He catches it one-handed and tosses it back before heading for the kitchen.
I lie there for another moment, just breathing.
Processing the fact that this is my life now.
Mated to a Grayhide historian who makes me feel things I never knew existed.
Part of something bigger than just myself or my pack.
Connected to someone who sees all my broken pieces and chooses to love them anyway.
Love.
The word feels foreign and familiar at the same time. I’ve never said it out loud. Never felt it without the curse dampening the emotion into something manageable. But now…
I get up and find one of Reeyan’s shirts on the floor and pull it on before I follow the smell of coffee to the kitchen.
He’s at the stove, scrambling eggs with one hand while pouring coffee with the other. The domesticity of the scene makes something warm bloom in my chest.
“You look good in my clothes,” he comments with a smirk.
“Your shirt was the closest thing I could find.”
“Keep it. Looks better on you anyway.”
I pour myself coffee and lean against the counter, watching him cook. “Reeyan?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
His hand stills on the spatula. He turns to face me, and the look in his green eyes makes my breath catch.
“Say that again.”
“I love you. Not because of the mate bond or because you saved me from Thornridge. I love you because you’re brilliant and kind and you believe in me even when I don’t believe in myself.”
He crosses the space between us in three strides and gathers my face in his hands. “I love you. I’ve loved you since that first moment on the desert road when you bit that Thornridge operative and refused to stop fighting.”
“That’s a weird moment to fall in love with someone,” I reply, scrunching up my nose.
“You’re a weird person. It fits.”
I laugh and pull him down for a kiss. He tastes like coffee and promises, and I never want to stop kissing him.
His hands slide under the shirt I’m wearing, warm palms running up my sides. I arch into his touch, already aching for more despite how thoroughly he claimed me last night.
“The eggs,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“Can wait.” I nip his bottom lip. “This can’t.”
He turns off the stove and lifts me onto the counter in one smooth motion before he steps between my thighs and kisses me like he’s trying to memorize the taste of my mouth. My legs wrap around his waist naturally, pulling him closer until I can feel how much he wants this, too.
“I need you,” I whisper between kisses.
He groans and slides his hands into my hair, angling my head for better access. His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw to the spot just below my ear that makes me whimper.
“Tell me what you want,” he prompts.
“You. All of you. Every way I can have you.”
His sweatpants hit the floor. I yank the shirt over my head and toss it aside. He lifts me off the counter and carries me to the bedroom, our mouths never breaking contact.
We fall onto the bed in a tangle of limbs. No more talking. Just touch and taste, and the insatiable need to be as close as possible.
He moves down my body, kissing and licking everywhere he can reach. When his mouth finds the place between my thighs, I cry out and fist my hands in his hair.
“Let me hear you,” he says against my skin. “I want to know exactly what I’m doing to you.”
I do. Every sound I make seems to encourage him, and he works me with single-minded focus until I’m shaking beneath his tongue. His fingers join his mouth, pushing inside me while he sucks my clit, and the sensation makes my hips buck off the mattress.
“Reeyan,” I gasp. “I’m going to—”
The orgasm crashes over me before I can finish the warning. I bow off the bed and call his name as pleasure rolls through every nerve ending. He doesn’t stop until I push him away, oversensitive and trembling.
“Come here,” I beg, reaching for him.
He moves back up my body and kisses me. I can taste myself on his lips, and the intimacy of it makes me clench with renewed want.
“Inside me,” I order. “Now.”
He positions himself at my entrance and pushes in slowly.
I’m already wet and ready from what his mouth did, but the stretch still makes me gasp.
He fills me completely, buried to the hilt, while we both adjust, followed by long, slow strokes that make my toes curl.
Every thrust sends sparks racing up my spine.
I wrap my legs around his waist and match his rhythm, taking him deeper.
The mate bond flares between us, amplifying everything we’re feeling. His pleasure feeds mine until I can’t tell where I end and he begins. We move together like we’ve done this a thousand times instead of just a handful.
“Harder,” I plead. “Need more.”
He braces his hands on either side of my head and increases his pace. The new angle makes me see stars. I dig my nails into his shoulders and hold on while he drives into me with enough force to make the bed shake.
“Touch yourself,” he orders, voice rough. “I want to feel you come around me.”
I slide my hand between us and circle my clit. The added sensation makes my inner walls flutter around him. He curses and thrusts harder, chasing his own release while I chase mine.
My second orgasm builds faster than the first. I feel it coiling at the base of my spine, winding tighter with each stroke. When it breaks, I shatter. My body convulses around him as pleasure tears through me in waves that seem endless.
His knot swells and locks us together as he follows me over the edge. He groans my name and empties himself deep inside me while I’m still clenching around him. The bond between us blazes so hot I can barely breathe through it.
We collapse together in a sweaty, panting heap. His knot keeps us joined, but this time, I don’t mind at all. I want to stay connected to him like this forever.
“I love you,” he whispers against my hair.
“I love you, too.”
We lie there until his knot softens enough to pull out. He rolls us onto our sides and pulls me against his chest, one arm draped protectively over my waist.
“The eggs are definitely ruined,” I comment after a while.
“Worth it.”
I laugh and snuggle closer. “We should probably eat something eventually.”
“Eventually.” He kisses my shoulder. “Right now, I just want to stay here with you.”
“That works for me.”
My phone goes off on the nightstand. I glance at it and see a message from Caelan.
Mom says to tell you she’s proud of you. We all are. Thank you for giving us this gift.
I show the message to Reeyan. He reads it and smiles.
“Your family is healing,” he comments.
“We all are.” I set the phone back down and curl into him. “One day at a time.”
Outside, I hear the sounds of Grayhide territory waking up. Wolves going about their morning routines. The world keeps turning, but right here in this bed, everything feels perfect.
The curse is broken. My pack is free. I have a mate who loves me for exactly who I am, flaws and all. The future lies ahead with new challenges and opportunities, but we’ll face them as partners.
For the first time in my life, I’m not afraid of what I’m feeling. Not ashamed of needing someone or convinced that connection makes me weak. The curse taught me all those lies, but the curse is gone now.
And I’m finally, truly free.