21. Fable #2
And beneath even that, his joy. Bright and overwhelming, expanding to fill every empty space in both of us. The joy of someone who has finally, finally found the thing they’ve been searching for. The joy of completion.
Oh, I think.
Oh.
Through the bond, I feel him feeling me too.
My love, reflected back at me through his perception, sharper than I realized, fiercer than I knew.
The terror that underlies it, the fear of loss that I’ve been carrying since my parents died.
And the hope. The stubborn, ridiculous hope that refuses to die no matter how many times life has tried to crush it.
I’m crying. He’s crying. We’re both crying, tears mixing on our cheeks, and somehow we’re also laughing, breathless, disbelieving laughter at the absurdity and the perfection of this moment.
“I can feel you,” he manages. “I can… you’re everywhere. You’re everything.”
“I know.” I press my forehead to his. “I feel you too.”
“This is real.”
“This is real.”
“You chose me.”
“I chose you.” I wipe the tears from his cheeks with my thumbs. “Was it worth the wait?”
“Worth everything.” His voice breaks. “Worth three hundred years. Worth a thousand more. Worth whatever comes next.”
“Hopefully what comes next involves less standing in the snow.”
He laughs again, that surprised, delighted sound, and I feel his joy beat through the bond in time with my pulse.
“I can carry you back.”
“I can walk.”
“I know you can.” He adjusts his grip, holding me closer. “But I just bonded with my mate. I’m allowed to be clingy.”
“For how long?”
“Forever, probably.”
“That seems excessive.”
“You signed up for this.”
I did. I really, truly did.
He carries me back to the house, and I let him.
Not because I can’t walk, I can, despite the barefoot run through the snow, but because it feels right. Because his arms are warm and his chest is solid and through the bond I can feel how much he needs this. How much he needs to hold me, protect me, prove to himself that I’m real and here and his.
Ours, I correct through the bond.
Ours, he agrees.
The walk back takes us along the edge of the clearing, where the gathering has collapsed into a bonfire party.
Someone has produced instruments. Someone else has produced a truly irresponsible quantity of cider.
The whole pack is in the loose, glowing mood that follows disaster averted, and we make it ten feet past the tree line before the first head turns.
Then another. Then a dozen. Nostrils flare. Conversations die mid-sentence. A knowing ripple moves through the crowd, and every single face swings toward us wearing a grin.
“Why is everyone looking at…” I stop. I look at Orion. I look at the crowd. I look at Orion. “They can SMELL it?!”
“The claim announces itself.”
“It ANNOUNCES itself?!”
“Honey and lightning,” he says, entirely unrepentant, “and pine. Mixed. Permanently. It’s considered a joyful scent.”
“It’s considered PRIVATE…”
Somewhere in the crowd a howl goes up, full-throated and celebratory. It’s answered by a dozen more, and Esme’s cackle cuts through all of it, a blade through frosting.
Theo materializes out of the firelight, bows with perfect formality, and says, “My queen. My king.” The corner of his mouth is doing something deeply insubordinate. “Congratulations.”
“We are not talking about this.”
“I said nothing, my queen.”
“Your face said everything.”
“My face is beyond my control. Unlike my nose, which…”
“Fired. You’re fired again.”
Mira takes one look at us, screams “I KNEW IT,” and bursts into tears.
Orion tucks me under his arm and steers me through the gauntlet of grins and congratulations while I hide my burning face against his ribs and feel him laughing, chest and bond both.
“I’m moving to the ocean,” I mutter. “Marine biologists can’t smell anything.”
“I’d follow you.”
“I know you would. That’s the whole problem with you.”
Later, in his bed, warm and wrapped around each other under blankets that smell like pine and him, I catch him watching me through the bond.
Not with his eyes, his eyes are closed, his breathing even. But I can feel his attention on me, soft and wondering. Like he’s still not quite sure this isn’t a dream.
Caught you being soft, I send through the connection.
His eyes fly open.
You can do that?
Apparently.
This is going to be a problem.
Only if you keep having tender feelings about me.
He pulls me closer, tucking me against his chest, and I feel his laugh vibrate through both of us, through our bodies and through the bond.
“I’ve never been happier to be caught,” he says.
His fingers find the mark on my throat, tracing its edges with a touch so light it barely lands, and through the bond I feel something in him gather itself. Steady itself. The particular quiet of Orion preparing to say a thing that matters.
“There’s one more thing you should know. It isn’t tonight-sized. But I promised you no more omissions.”
I prop myself up on his chest. “Okay. Hit me.”
“The claim binds us. Heart, mind, the bond you’re feeling now.” His eyes hold mine, steady and gold. “But there is an older rite. Deeper than claiming. It binds life to life. Your thread to mine. Your years.” His thumb strokes the mark. “To my years.”
It takes me a second. Then it takes me another one.
“Are you telling me I could live as long as you?”
“I’m telling you the road exists. It isn’t simple, and it isn’t soon, and it asks more of both of us than a bite.
And before your FAQ brain gets there: no, it isn’t the turning ritual.
No one has to survive becoming a lycan. It binds what we each already are.
” The old fear flickers through the bond, there and mastered.
“But I couldn’t lie here holding you and let you believe I intend to simply watch you go someday and call it fate. You deserved to know there’s a door.”
I look at him. Three hundred years old, terrified under all that stillness of a someday that’s decades away, and telling me anyway, at one in the morning, because he promised.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?”
“We’ll cross that bridge later. Together.”
“Just like that?”
“Orion. Tonight I gave a speech to a clearing full of lycans, got charged by a man older than the United States, was chased barefoot through a moonlit forest, and received a magical hickey with a howling audience. My capacity for life-altering revelations is at maximum. The bridge will still be there tomorrow. And the day after. That’s apparently the entire point of the bridge. ”
His laugh moves through both of us, body and bond at once.
“Bridge later,” he agrees. “Together.”
I press my face into his neck and breathe him in. Feel his heartbeat through the bond, echoed in my own chest. The moon is bright outside the windows. The snow still glitters. And somewhere in the house, Mario is probably plotting elaborate revenge for being excluded.
I don’t care about any of it.
Mine, I think, and push the feeling toward him.
Yours, he answers.