Page 101 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

Rory grinned at him. “I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s kind of a thing I’ve always been able to do, so it doesn’t seem so weird to me.”

Slowly, Max nodded. He supposed if you’d been doing something for millennia, it would seem pretty standard.

Rory clarified, “I could have been more clear about some of your questions about fate. I’m sorry about that. We agreed not to tell anyone but our mate about everything to try to protect ourselves.”

Given that Max and every other witch and shifter on the planet was actively hiding themselves from normal people, he didn’t suppose he could blame Rory for doing the same. It just wasn’t as nice being on the “not knowing” side of the equation, and he had even more sympathy for Tom now.

“I certainly wouldn’t want anything to happen to you,” Max told him truthfully.

Rory smiled softly. “Thank you. I, uh, had some trouble figuring out when was the appropriate time to reveal everything. You might still have decided you didn’t want to be my mate, but there was some information you needed in order to make that choice. I got a bit muddled and just kept leaving it. I shouldn’t have. Sorry.”

Max tugged Rory into his arms, nearly overbalanced the two of them on their stools, and declared that it was time to relocate to the sofa. The hugging worked much better on the cushions. It was incredibly reassuring to have all of Rory’s human body tucked up against Max, radiating heat. (And didn’t that make a lot of sense now.)

“I always want you to protect yourself,” Max assured him. “And I’m well aware that I didn’t sound very open to the idea of mates. You were right to be cautious.”

Max couldn’t imagine ever wanting to harm Rory no matter what, but people were complicated, and he could imagine in the abstract a scenario where that sort of reveal could go totally wrong for a mythical shifter.

Rory hugged him close and brushed a soft kiss to his cheek. “Thank you. I want you to know everything now so that you can make an informed decision.”

Max turned so that he was facing Rory more completely. “I thought I lost you when I was dying. And then when I woke up and you weren’t there, I was filled with this totally weird certainty that everything was fine, but I didn’t understand why. When I realized your ashes were swirling around, I was horrified, except there was still a part of me that believed it was okay even if I couldn’t understand how. I’ve spent the last week with you as a bird who couldn’t talk to me in a language I understood. All of that together cleared a lot up for me. I want you in my life. I can’t imagine it without you. You’re my mate, and I want to bond with you.”

Rory just stared at him for a moment, looking stunned, and then he launched himself at Max and tackled him in a hug, nearly squeezing the stuffing out of him.

“Yay!” he exclaimed jubilantly. “This is the best news!”

Max couldn’t help but laugh, wrapping his arms around the man who was now on top of him and hugging him close. Yeah, he definitely couldn’t imagine life without Rory in it.

After a few minutes, Rory sat up again and added, “Oh, but I should finish explaining. You still need to be fully informed before you make any decisions.”

That was fair enough. Max did like information. “What do I need to know?”

“If we bond, I’ll become your familiar.”

Max nodded. That was standard between witches and shifters. A relationship bond became a familiar bond; you couldn’t have one without the other. In rare cases, you could have a familiar bond without a relationship bond, but that was usually in the case of siblings or platonic partners or someone who was aromantic or otherwise had no interest in a romantic bond.

Rory added, “A mythical shifter familiar is mostly like a shifter familiar.”

If it was in the way that mythical shifters were mostly like shifters—they just lived forever and had extra magic—then Max definitely needed to know more.

“How do they vary exactly?” he asked.

“Well, it’s not varying, exactly.” A furrow appeared in Rory’s brow like he was trying to puzzle something out. “It’s more like… the degree. Like, bonding with me would extend your life to mine—just like usually happens with a shifter/witch bond!” Rory pointed out hopefully.

Max snorted. “Just in this case, you’re living forever.”

“Right,” Rory agreed.

Ho-ly shit.

“Like actual forever?” Max demanded.

Rory shrugged. “We don’t know for sure, I guess. Maybe the Magic will unmake us at some point the same way that it made us to begin with. But so far, there hasn’t been a fixed endpoint that we’re aware of.”

Yeah, that sounded like forever to Max.

“Okay, living forever,” he declared, cracking his neck and rolling his shoulders. “I can deal with that.”

Probably.