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I stroke his arm, which is back around my chest, thumbing my nipple. “That sounds kind of dependent,” I say around a smile.
“Completely,” he agrees and I feel the humor fall away through our bond.
“What?” Is he having doubts? My stomach lurches.
“Is this okay?”
I turn as much as I can in his arms to try and look at him, unsure what he means. He holds me tight, as if he’s scared to let me go. “Is what okay?”
“That we’re not fated, not like the others. Does it bother you?”
Oh, Jackson…
It breaks my heart feeling how much he thinks he’s let us down. “Why would it bother me? We’re mates. I don’t care if we had to do magic to make it that way. All bonds are just magic anyway.”
“I feel the same, but how we got here is a little confusing, Dove. We imprinted, but we’re not fated. I felt that connection as if we were, even before we realized we have a history.” His voice, usually so strong and sure, cracks with emotion. “Maybe the bond would have kicked in eventually if we’d waited. We were always destined to be together.”
His heat presses against my spine and melt into him. I send all my emotions through our bond, letting him know exactly how I feel. “It doesn't matter to me how we got here. We always felt right and you felt like mine in the few memories that I got back. Whatever the Order did to us messed up what should have happened naturally, but by imprinting us, they made us an even better power couple. I don’t care if we were fated or imprinted or chosen. All I wanted was for us to belong to each other, and now that I can feel you in here—” I tap my chest over my heart “—I'm finally complete.”
He kisses along my neck with a desperation I feel too. For the first time in a long time I’m relaxed, and at ease. There is no noise in my head, no uncertainty. There is just him and me.
“You shifted,” he says into my ear.
“I couldn’t control it, but I don’t think I could do it again or hold it for long.” It’s not unheard of for tau wolves to shift, though it is unusual. Not all of us can do it, the witch part of our genes making it harder to change for some reason.
“Maybe one day we’ll be able to run together in our wolf forms,” he says.
“That would be fun.”
He kisses my neck. “Come on. I need to clean you up.”
We shower and then dress. I take my time finding a pair of slim-fit jeans and pairing it with my favorite stolen hoodie. Jackson doesn’t seem to mind that I collect his clothes like a magpie—in fact, there’s a heated look that flashes in his eyes and makes my pussy throb whenever he sees me in anything of his.
Today is no different. His eyes linger on me like a starving man before he steps into my space and kisses me. “You hungry?” he asks when we pull apart.
As always, I’m a little dazed after his kiss, so I blink slowly as I try to come back to myself. “What?”
He snorts. “You’re always so cute after I’ve fucked you.”
“I think you screw my brains out every time,” I complain, taking his hand as he leads me out of the bedroom.
In the living area, the others are sitting around. Tessa is lying on the couch, her head in Abel’s lap, her legs tucked up to her slightly swollen stomach. Her pale skin contrasts with the darkness of her hair, which her mate is stroking in soothing gestures.
“Look who decided to show their faces,” Halle jokes.
“We were getting worried we might have to send food up to you,” Sawyer adds. “Fucking building up an appeti?—”
“Don’t finish that,” Roux warns, “or you won’t be building any appetite for the rest of the week.”
Sawyer scoffs at her. “You wouldn’t last the rest of the day.”
The roll of her eyes is meant to hide the heat staining her cheeks. Everyone in this… family fucks nonstop.
“You guys are like horny dogs,” Apryle mutters. “I’d rather have cake than a mate.” Since we got here, she’s been a little adrift from the rest of us. I don’t know if it’s because we’re mostly mated pairs now—apart from her and Wyatt—but she’s spending a lot of time up at the main building, training with Beck and his brother, Archie.
Tessa groans. “Don’t talk about food.”
“Are you still feeling bad?” I ask her.
