Chapter 46 — Ethan
I’d read some about fated mates in the Lycan books, the sparse passages about bonds ordained by the Moon Goddess, souls tethered through eternity. I remember Thea’s explanation about Lycans marking each other to form a bond far stronger than human marriage. But I’d dismissed it as mythology, the kind of legends every culture invents to give meaning to indescribable connections. It doesn’t sink into my brain that a divine being I’ve never even heard of could somehow guarantee this.
“How do you know?” The words barely form.
Rhiannon shifts forward until her boots bracket mine, her body a wall of heat I can’t retreat from. “The High Seer confirmed it. When I visited Mahal about Jayme, he told me my fated mate was already among the pack. I assumed he meant another Lycan.”
Her grip on my shirt tightens. “That’s why, when I started developing feelings for you, I fought it. Tried to shut it down. But then the mind-link opened between us, something that has never happened between a Lycan and a human. Ever. I wentback to Mahal and consulted him again.” She takes a steady breath. “You’remy fated mate. The mind-link exists because the Moon Goddess bound us together.”
“So, when you say you’retemporary—” Her hand presses flat against my chest, her amber eyes lock onto mine like she’s bracing for me to bolt. “You’re wrong. If you walk through that gate tonight, you’re not saving the life I built, Ethan. You’re taking the air that I breathe.”
The walls I’ve built are no match for her. Relief, joy, and disbelief crash together until I can’t separate one feeling from the next.
I pull her so close that her feet lift from the ground. My hand cradles her head as I bury my face against her hair, breathing her in.
“I love you so much, Rhiannon.”
Her arms lock around my waist, her face pressing into my chest. “I love you too, Ethan.”
I ease back just enough to meet her eyes and grin. “So, the Moon Goddess has a really strange sense of humor.”
She huffs out a shaky almost-laugh. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“If anything, it does explain why it’s so fucking impossible to walk away from you.”
Her fingers toy with the collar of my shirt, but her expression sobers. “The obstacles we talked about before. . .the politics, the laws, the resistance from others. That still hasn’t gone away. You know that, right?”
I nod slowly.
“But Xander promised to petition the Alpha King on our behalf, and Mahal will support us.” A note of hope threads through her words. “There’s a genuine possibility the Alpha King might approve. Not even he can defy what the Moon Goddess intends. If he does give his blessing, our relationship willbecome public, and we’ll have to face everything that comes with that. Every whispering voice in Kortan will have an opinion, and not all of them will be kind.”
“And if he says no?”
“We run,” she says with no hesitation. “To the Outer Lands. But we’ll runtogether. Xander won’t pursue us. If the Alpha King does, and he finds us, we’re dead. Both of us.”
I search her face for any crack, any trace of doubt. “You’d give up everything? Your rank, your pack, your entire world? To live in the Outer Lands with a human?” My throat tightens. “Knowing they’d kill us if they found us?”
“In a heartbeat. I’d rather spend an eternity with you in exile than an hour alone in Kortan.” Her fingers lace through mine. “Those are the options. I need you to understand what you’re choosing.”
I meet her golden-brown eyes. They’re the eyes of the woman who almost killed me in Thea’s apartment, who later threw herself between me and a blade, who just now handed me her entire soul and asked me not to harm it.
“Then we stop half-assing this.” I cup her face with both hands. “If we’re doing this — really doing this — we have to commit. We have to be all in. Together. No more secrets, no hiding, nothing halfway.” My thumbs brush her cheekbones. “Whatever comes next, we face it side by side.”
“Yes.” Her forehead presses against mine. “All in.”
I kiss her.
It starts slow, almost careful, my lips brushing hers like a question I already know the answer to. Rhiannon’s fingers curl into the front of my shirt, and she makes this sound against my mouth that’s half surrender, half demand, and it dismantlescarefulentirely.
I catch the shift in her. Her general dissolving into my hands. I pull her closer, my fists tangling in her hair, and she arches into me like she’s been holding her breath for days.
This is the moment my life divides into before and after.
The exact pressure of her mouth. The warmth of her skin under my palms. The specific way she sighs when I angle my head and deepen the kiss, her lips parting to let me in. The taste of her, wild and warm, like cloves and midnight air. Every detail burns itself into my memory permanently.
“Ethan, we should stop.” The words leave her mouth, but there’s zero conviction behind them. Her fingers tighten their grip in my hair.
“Probably,” I say. Neither of us move.
