She opened her eyes. They were wet with tears, but she was smiling—that brilliant, unguarded smile that had undone him from the start.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Are you?—”
“If you ask if I’m okay, I will hex you.” She laughed, the sound shaky but genuine. “I’m better than okay. I’m… I can feel you. Not your thoughts. You. Like you’re part of me now.”
He felt it too. The awareness of her, bright and new in his gut. Not telepathy—the bond didn’t work that way. But a sense of her presence, her location, her existence woven into his own.
Completeness. That was the only word for it.
He rolled to his side, pulling her with him, keeping her close. The sheets were tangled, the room wrecked, and Leo couldn’t remember ever being this content.
“I love you,” he said again, because he could. Because he’d wasted years not saying it to anyone, and now he had someone worth saying it to.
“I love you.” She curled into his side, her head on his chest. “Even though you’re bossy and controlling and have terrible taste in restaurants.”
“One restaurant.”
“That’s one too many.”
He laughed—a real laugh, the sound rolling out of him unbidden. A month ago, he couldn’t have imagined this. A year ago, he would have called it absurd. But here he was lying in a rumpled bed in a coastal town he’d never planned to visit, wearing the scent of a witch who drove him crazy, feeling joy so sharp, it almost hurt.
Junie had given him that.
“We should go back to the party,” she murmured against his chest. “People will talk.”
“People always talk.”
“Elder Sue is probably already composing the gossip.”
“Let her.” He tightened his arm around her. “We have the rest of our lives for parties. Right now, I want this.”
This. The quiet intimacy of skin against skin. The weight of her in his arms. The bond humming between them, new and bright and permanent.
Home.
THIRTY-NINE
JUNIE
Two hours later, freshly showered and wearing a simpler gown that covered her throbbing shoulder, Junie slipped back into the garden with Leo at her side.
The celebration was still in full swing. Fairy lights glowed in the oaks, music drifted from the small band Avine had hired, and the champagne was flowing freely. The looks they received ranged from knowing (Avine) to amused (Theo) to scandalized (Elder Eamon Amell, who had clearly expected more decorum from a mating ceremony).
Junie kept her expression carefully neutral. Leo’s hand rested at the small of her back, and she could feel him—not physically alone, but inside, a presence at the edge of her awareness. The bond pulsed with his satisfaction, his contentment, his love.
So this is what it feels like.To belong to someone completely.
Not ownership. Choice. A choice made permanent, sealed in blood and magic and the ancient ritual of claiming.
Dahlia materialized at her elbow, pressing a glass of champagne into her hand. “You have a leaf in your hair.”
“That’s not possible. We were inside.”
“Uh-huh.” Dahlia’s eyes sparkled with barely contained laughter. “Inside, where exactly?”
“Nowhere with leaves.”
