Chapter 24 - Lara #2
I know it’s important to him that everyone sees that we have chosen this freely, and we don’t care what the lottery magic says.
I think in his own stubborn Wilf way, he actually prefers it this way.
So we walk, hand in hand up the steps, knowing the bowl is irrelevant.
But I guess no one told the magic it wasn’t needed because the moment we reach the top step, the bowl flares to life, lighting up the fading light of the sky.
It’s not just a flicker. It’s a steady column of golden fire that almost instantly deepens to a shade of blue I’ve rarely seen in real life, and it holds there, burning blue and bright in front of the whole square.
The crowd falls silent, and then comes apart in noisy cheers, a few howls, somebody calling near the front.
I don't fully understand it the way they do, but I understand the process enough to know this is important.
I can see it in their faces and the way Wilf's hand has gone tight around mine. Wilf’s lottery magic was left open because it was waiting for me.
It couldn't name me because I wasn't pack, wasn't wolf, wasn't anything it could search for; perhaps it couldn’t even sense me through the protection magic, but now that I'm standing here choosing him, it has responded with the burns of true mates.
Everything Amelia warned him about, all that danger and not-knowing, has gone up in flames, burning away any uncertainty.
Wilf isn't even looking at the bowl. He's looking at me, gold at the edges of his eyes, raw emotion written all over his face.
"Told you I didn't need it," he says under the noise of the crowd.
"We didn’t need it, but here it is anyway," I tell him, squeezing his hand.
Amelia lifts one hand, and the square goes instantly quiet again.
Her part is short, which I'm grateful for, because my heart's going hard enough that I couldn't have stood much more.
Her voice carries to the back without seeming to rise.
She welcomes me. She asks Wilf if he'll honor and protect me with all he has, and he says he will, plain, certain, and full of truth.
She asks if I'll stand with him and with this pack, choose them, hold them as mine, even the parts I don't understand yet.
"I will," I say, and it comes out steadier than I expect.
"And you wanted to say more," Amelia says gently. "Now is your chance."
I turn to Wilf, and the square falls away, and it's just him and me.
"My father spent my whole life telling me to run from people like you," I tell him.
"He meant it kindly, but he was wrong. You pulled me out of that hut, and you fed me, and you fixed the door so I'd stop flinching at it, and you never once asked me to be something I wasn't. I didn't know what home was.
I thought I'd lost the only one I’d ever have, but it turns out home is wherever the people you love are.
" My voice goes, and I let it. "I choose you.
Magic or no magic. I'd have chosen you on that mountain with nothing in the world. I love you."
His jaw works. For a second, he doesn't trust his voice, and then he finds it.
"I love you," he says. "I should have told you the first morning because, looking back, my wolf knew; he just didn’t trust himself to feel it. I'm going to spend a long time making up for not telling you sooner."
Amelia says her last words over both of us, her light old hand on each of our heads, and the blue flame holds, and that's it.
I'm bound to him and he to me, the bowl is closed, and the town's already breaking into the party behind us as Wilf pulls me closer and kisses me, slow and certain in front of all of them.
The howl goes up around us and makes goosebumps race across my skin.
The rest of the evening is a blur of laughing with my new friends, so many hugs.
Nick finds me, takes both my hands, and says, "Welcome home, Lara," meaning it so plainly I have to look away.
The band plays for hours, and the entire square feels like the epicenter of happiness, with laughter echoing off the mountain ridges.
We slip away just before midnight, the music thinning out behind us as Wilf drives us home. Home.
The night is warm, and Wilf doesn’t let go of my hand as we walk the path up to his porch, scooping me up at the bottom in a ridiculous display as he insists on carrying me into our home.
“Sorry to steal you from your own party,” he says, shouldering the door.
“I’d rather be here,” I tell him, my face buried in his neck. “With you.”
He sets me down inside in the dark; the cabin is quiet around us, with the warm night coming through the window I left open this morning.
He doesn't let go. He brushes the hair back off my face with his thumb, careful the way he's careful with everything when it comes to me, his eyes gone gold and steady on mine.
"You sure?" he says. Not quite a question. But I know he’s nervous about the mating bite. Strangely, I’m not. I want him, I want his wolf.
"I've never been surer of anything," I tell him, and I pull his mouth down to mine.
It’s been six weeks since we declared our love, six weeks of not being able to keep our hands off each other, and yet tonight feels like the first time.
Perhaps the bond has changed something, even for me, because every touch of his lips, every sweep of his hands, feels like pure electricity dancing along my skin.
I gasp as he walks me back against the door, kissing down my neck, bunching the dress fabric in his hands before pulling away suddenly.
“Not here,” he growls. “Tonight is too special not to be in a bed.”