Chapter 22 #2
Nash looks at me for a second without saying anything. Taking stock, the way he always does. Probably reading my freaking mind. Then his eyes drop to my shoulder.
“How bad?” he asks.
“Three weeks in a sling. Marcus says I’ll feel it every time it rains.”
“That long?”
“Apparently, hex magic leaves a mark.”
His expression deepens into concern. “Does it hurt?”
“Of course not. My pain tolerance is unreasonably high.”
“I know,” he says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
He takes in the apartment the way he did the first time—not performing interest, just actually curious—and then finds the wine on the coffee table and the two glasses, and something in his expression goes quiet in a way I feel through the bond before I see it on his face.
That’ll take some getting used to, but if I’m honest, I kind of love it. Knowing what he’s feeling without needing to ask. Or waiting for him to tell me. The data-driven, strategic bitch in me loves having all the information.
He sits down on my other side. Echo opens one eye at the new presence, determines Nash is acceptable, and closes it again.
He reaches for both wine glasses. Offers me mine.
We drink.
The city does its thing below us. A siren somewhere on the east side. A car alarm two streets over that cuts off mid-cycle. Normal sounds. The sounds of a city that is still standing.
“How’s your throat?” I ask.
The gashes have all closed over, but the bruising remains—and it looks gnarly.
He touches it briefly. “Fine.”
“Nash.”
“I’ve had worse."
“That's not what I asked.”
He looks at me. “It’s fine, Mia.”
I hold his gaze. He holds mine back and doesn’t look away, and I know he’s doing it on purpose, giving me somewhere to look that isn’t the bruising on his throat, and the move is so specifically him that something in my chest squeezes tight.
All I can think about is that moment Ramsey stood over him, ready to rip his throat out. The fear I felt. The raw, absolute knowing that I would be destroyed if I lost this man in front of me. A destruction that had nothing to do with the mate bond.
“You did the same thing for me, you know.” My voice comes out raspy.
“What?”
“This morning, you said I reached you when nothing else could. You did the same for me. Reached me when nothing else could.”
His expression softens into something more teasing. “You don’t think missing your dose of Null had something to do with that?”
I shake my head. “The Null couldn’t numb what I felt for you.”
“Which was…?” he prompts.
I glare, but he only grins like he’s really enjoying this. “I’ve made my feelings for you very clear, Mia Reyes. It’s only fair you do the same.”
“Fine,” I say but then hesitate. The old Mia would never admit this.
But I remind myself things are different now, so I make myself tell him the vulnerable truth even if my voice drops in volume by about seven clicks.
“Today, when Ramsey almost—” I stop, unable to say the words.
Not that the next ones are any easier. “I was in love with you long before the mate bond told me you were mine.”
His grin widens, and I realize I’ve never seen him smile like this before. “Is that right?” he drawls.
“Yes.” I scowl. “And it really pissed me off, if I’m being honest. Almost as much as this moment is doing right now. I could do without the smug ‘I knew all along’ bullshit.”
“No, you can’t.” He reaches over and winds an arm around my waist, pulling me onto his lap.
He’s careful not to jostle my injured arm.
On my other side, Echo protests the movement lazily but then goes back to sleep.
“That’s one of your favorite qualities in me.
Admit it,” he says when we’re face to face.
“Hah. Never.”
“Do you know what my favorite quality is in you?” His voice drops low, which instantly gets my attention. He’s close now, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him through my shirt.
“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“You don’t quit on the people you love,” he says. “Not for anything. You just keep going until the thing is done and the people you love are safe. Your wolf’s dominance—its stubbornness—is your strength.” His hand at my waist shifts slightly. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I swallow. “Nash.”
“I love you,” he says. Just that. No wind-up, no cushioning. “I’ve been in love with you for two years, and I would very much like to stop pretending otherwise.”
The room is silent.
My wolf is quiet too, listening, with the patient attention of someone who has been waiting for this exact moment for a long time and is hoping I don’t fuck it up for both of us.
I think about my father and his mate bond and what it cost him.
I think about standing in the hallway and knowing what Nash was to me and feeling the floor drop out.
And I think about what it felt like to reach through the bond this morning, and find him on the other side, and how it didn’t feel like losing anything.
It felt like finding something I’d stopped letting myself look for.
More importantly, in the end, it made me stronger instead of weaker. Not less myself. More.
“I love you, too, Nash Cross.” The words come out steadier than I expect. “I'll probably be furious about it for months and fight you on it every step of the way.”
He laughs, low and sudden, and I feel it in my sternum.
“Does that mean I get months’ worth of makeup sex?” he asks.
“Don’t push it.”
He pushes it by kissing me, which works out fine.
It starts slow—his mouth on mine, one hand moving from my waist to my jaw, tilting me toward him with a patience that I know by now is deliberate and infuriating in the best possible way.
I get a hand in his shirt.
He makes a sound against my mouth that I file under reasons to continue.
Echo makes a small offended noise.
We both pull apart and look over at the sassy raccoon.
He’s sitting up now, looking between us with an expression that manages to be both deeply unimpressed and deeply uninterested. Then he hops over to me and holds up something shiny.
The diamond ring.
“Um, I’m not sure now’s a good time for stolen presents,” I tell him.
Nash snorts. “It’s not from him.”
I whip around to meet his gaze and note the way his dark eyes are dancing with some kind of mischief. I look from Nash to Echo, suspicious of both of them now. “What are you talking about?”
Echo presses the ring into my hands and darts away, disappearing into the spare bedroom.
I stare after him.
“You showed up when Nash did,” I call after him. “You know that, right?”
No answer. Obviously.
“Very suspicious timing,” I add.
Something crashes softly in the spare room.
Nash chuckles.
I look at the ring. Then at Nash.
“You told him to give this to me?” I ask.
“It was my mother’s,” he says simply, and my heart takes off at breakneck speed.
“What?” I breathe.
“She always wanted me to give it to my fated mate,” he says quietly.
My brain short-circuits as I try to process that.
“Are you…proposing to me?”
“I’m trying to.” He winces. “Probably screwing it up, though.”
I study him like I would any prisoner I was interrogating. But his heart rate, while a little excited, is steady. His eye contact is unwavering. He’s telling the truth. He wants this.
Fuck me.
“You want to marry me?” My voice is more like a squeak now.
“I want to claim you in every way I can, Mia Reyes. If you’ll have me.”
My wolf is calm. The human version of me, however, is falling apart. Racing heart. Roaring in my ears. Slight tremble in my hands.
Nash clocks all of it, I know.
Gingerly, I reach up and touch the bruise on his jaw. He lets me, watching my face while I do it.
“I'm not going to be careful with you,” I say. I mean it as a warning.
“Good,” he says. "I don't want careful.”
“I'm difficult.”
“That’s my type.”
“I'll argue with you constantly.”
“I’ll let you win sometimes,” he shoots back.
“Nash—”
He kisses me again, and this time, there's no slow about it.
I stop arguing. And in his arms, the fear melts away. In its place, the future stretches before me. A future with a mate by my side. And I’m stronger for it.
He pulls his mouth from mine just enough to say, “Is that a yes?”
I smirk. “It’s a yes from me. But there’s still the matter of asking permission for my hand.”
“Already done.”
I lift a brow.
“You think I wouldn’t talk to Charlie about this first?” he challenges.
I give a slow, evil smile. “Oh, I wasn’t talking about Charlie.”
His eyes widen. “You want me to ask Grey for your hand?”
“Grey will be the easy one,” I scoff. “You have to convince Dutch, Crow, and Razor to give me up. That’s how I’ll know you’re worthy.”
“That’s asking a lot,” he says.
“You’d be taking your life into your hands,” I agree.
“Or I could just bring them breakfast sandwiches.”
“And with that, you have passed the test. You are officially worthy of me.” I kiss him before he can talk any more shit.
He smiles against my mouth, and I feel it everywhere.
Through the bond. Through my skin. Through the place in my chest that has been braced for impact for so many years I’m not sure I know what to do now that the hit never comes.
Nash doesn’t take.
He waits.
Even now, with me in his lap and his mother’s ring clenched in my fist and my mouth on his, he waits for me to decide how much of this moment I’m willing to give.
It almost makes me want to bite him right here, right now, on principle.
So I do.
Not hard enough to draw blood—yet. Just enough to catch his bottom lip between my teeth and hear the low sound it drags out of him.
His hand tightens at my waist. “Careful, darling.”
“No,” I say, pulling back just far enough to look at him. “I’m done being careful.”
Something in his expression shifts. Heat, yes. Hunger, definitely. But underneath both of those is the thing that ruins me completely.
Relief.
Like he’s been standing at the edge of this moment for two years, waiting for me to open the door.
I take his hand and press the ring into his palm.
“If you’re going to do this,” I say, my voice rougher than I mean it to be, “do it properly.”
His eyes darken.