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“Get out of your head, Tate,” Carter called over his shoulder, leaving me standing in front of the mirror.

I took a deep breath, relieved that the corset allowed as much. Despite it being tightly cinched in a way that made it look like I had an hourglass figure, it was surprisingly comfortable.

Carter reappeared in the doorway. “You need a minute?”

I shook my head. If I stood there any longer I was liable to call the whole thing off. Carter grabbed the final piece of my outfit sitting on the bed—a masquerade mask, designed to only cover one of my eyes, woven with black and blue lace.

I seriously wondered why Chris had kept this outfit in the back of his closet. It would look so much better on him.

“There you go,” Carter murmured, securing the mask at the back of my head with its satin ribbons. “He’s in the living room when you’re ready. I’m going to finish getting dressed.”

“Carter,” I called, halting him just in the doorway. He paused and peered at me over his shoulder.

“Thank you,” I told him. “For… everything. I don’t think I’d have survived this school without you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that, Tate. That’s what big brothers are for. I’ll see you there.”

With that, he vanished from my doorway. I heard him mutter a quiet threat to Luc, which made me snicker. I’d never imagined that it would take my acceptance to a monster-housing university and a black cat shifter for a roommate for me to find my true family.

I adjusted the corset one more time, pulled a few coils of hair out of my mask to hang in front of the lace, then steeled myself and left my room in search of my mate.

Chapter 22

LUC

I felt sick. I’d felt sick all day long with nerves, but I had yet to actually be sick.

Maybe my waistcoat was just too tight.

After Carter had whisked into the room, whispered a threat into my ear, and vanished to finish getting dressed, I reached back and tugged to loosen the strap.

Better… kind of.

I didn’t understand why I was so nervous. Tate was mine now, in every sense of the word. We’d completed the bond. He now wore my scent, bore my mark on his neck.

I’d offered to keep the mark somewhere inconspicuous so his family wouldn’t ask questions. I didn’t think that meeting the parents with a pulsing purple mark on Tate’s neck would be a smart move on my part, even if I was a devil, but Tate assured me that his neck was fine.

He’d allowed me to mark him, to spill inside of him and claim him for the entire world to know.

So why was I sweating like a teenager on his first date?

I’d been on dates before, some that meant more than others, but this one felt different. This would be the first time that I would present Tate as mine. Granted, quite a few students at the university had also mated that semester—Chris and Jaxon included, so it was likely that multiple couples would be seen for the first time since.

But… This was us.

The mate that I never thought I’d find; the ritual that I never thought I’d experience. I’d witnessed it in my sisters, had heard about it through family circles but I never imagined it would happen to me.

Thumping footsteps echoed from Tate’s bedroom. The bathroom light clicked on, then off, and when he emerged from the hallway, my knees nearly buckled.

“Unholy shit…” I murmured, little more than a whisper and surprised that I could even find my words at all. Tate stole the breath right out of my lungs. He paused in the hallway, shyly holding his arms behind his back. Head down, he peered up at me through his lashes, but the flicker of those gorgeous green eyes was all I needed to see.

The corset hugged his figure perfectly, cinching at his waist and teasing at the pale skin of his stomach, bracketed by the waistband of the satin skirt that sat low on his hips.

I swallowed against an unexpectedly dry throat. I’d seen every part of Tate, had traced the lines of his body with my lips until he fell apart beneath me, but that didn’t hold a candle to seeing him in something that was truly him. He was shy, yes, but held himself in a way I had yet to see.

He cocked one hip, the long lines of his thigh peeking out of the slit in the skirt. My eyes trailed up the flawless, pale skin, wondering what the hell he had on underneath—if he had on anything at all.

“A-are those for me?” Tate asked nervously. Despite his confident stature, his voice quivered.