Page 151 of Tempting Fate

Weavers Of Fate

Imani

AIRIDA’S SKIN AGAINST mine felt so warm, so right. I could wake up like this every morning and be happy.

I love him.

The thought whispered in my ears, rushing through my veins until every beat of my heart said love him, love him, love him. Even the worry over how we’d get out of here was eclipsed by this realisation, the still-fragile hope that things would work, that I could have the happiness I wished I deserved.

But the mate bond hadn’t appeared.

If I loved him, and he said he wanted me for his mate, and there was no bond… why?

As worry rushed in, it opened the gates to everything else. We could have died. We could have been captured. We could have been fish food. Everything had nearly gone so terribly, terribly wrong. And this had been my plan, my idea to hide out, my selfish desire to keep him with me when I should have let him go.

I swallowed around my too-thick throat. He should be on a carrier on the way to Orith, safe, not here in danger with me.

That was why the bond hadn’t appeared, wasn’t it? My selfishness meant I wasn’t enough for him, that I wasn’t truly right for him.

“You are tense.” Airida’s words rumbled through me.

You could say that. “Just thinking.”

“Is it the kind of thoughts that race away, picking up every fear, getting louder with each passing second?”

Tears pricked at my eyes. “It might be.”

“Tell me.”

“I thought I gave the orders,” I offered weakly.

“You do—unless you need me to take you out of your head, and then I will take care of my mate.”

At the word, I stiffened.

“Are you having second thoughts?”

“No, it’s not that.” I took a breath. “I thought… I thought something was supposed to happen. When we decided.”

“You mean the bond?”

“Yes.” As soon as the words started to flow, I couldn’t stop. “I thought it was hard to avoid once we fell… once we developed feelings for each other. So why hasn’t it happened? It’s me, isn’t it? I’m not right for you, am I? Not good enough for your gods or fates or whoever.” That had to be it. Fuck, I couldn’t bear for this to fail, not now. Stupid, stupid Imani. This was why I’d promised I’d never do this again, so I’d never have to feel this heartache.

A deep growl rumbled through Airida’s chest, and a snarl ripped from his mouth. “Skik the gods. Look at me.” His mouth hung open, crystalline eyes almost glowing—feral, untamed, and unmistakably kri’ith. “We’ve been dancing around this bond, you’ve been so worried about it forming, about it not forming, and for what? To still struggle under its supposed judgement? Enough. Humans don’t have this bond, do you?”

I shook my head, all words lost under his fierce conviction.

“So you do what? Just choose each other?”

I nodded.

“Why can we not do that?” He ran a claw down my cheek, gentle, soft, yet the steady pressure I needed.

He remembered. Every time. “I want to.”

“So we choose each other. I am done with being beholden to other beings’ systems. You are the first person to see me, to see who I am and not judge me as deformed or weak or lacking. And I see you. I see my mate.” His voice filled with music, every word sending harmonics ringing out against the walls of the cave. “I choose you over everyone else, over every god, every weaver of fate in this galaxy or the next. If they cannot see how perfect you are, I will claim you for myself. I will mark you with my claws and my seed and my tongue, and you will mark me with your words and your wetness and your bonds, and they will be all we need—because all I need is you. My Imani. My mate.”

His truth rang out, so full of conviction it burned away my fears, trust rising from their ashes. It will be all we need.