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“If I saw you look at your fated mate the way you said I looked at Aeven that day, I would’ve drawn the same conclusions,” I admitted to Teris. “We hadn’t even kissed or anything—everything was still up in the air.”
“Not for me,” he said bluntly.
My face warmed.
Guilt tugged at me, and I remembered the moments in his cave.
When he’d told me he loved me, and I hadn’t responded.
I was becoming the bad guy all over again, wasn’t I? Teris was going to be the one who loved me more in our relationship, and I was going to spend the rest of my life feeling absolutely, horrifically guilty for it, day in and day out.
The men shifted, and I rode on Teris’s back, burying my fingers in his fur as he carried me to Lian’s cave. We reached it a few minutes later—a hole in the ground, built almost exactly the same as Teris’s from the outside. But when we slipped in, I realized it was bigger, and formatted with a large living area as well as two individual bedrooms.
They did have a baby on the way, after all.
January wasn’t as alone in her room as I expected—North was there too, as well as Mare and Summer.
I froze a bit when I saw her. She was in love with him for a while—I’d known she was in love with him, and I’dhatedher for it, even when I had no reason to, and didn’t even know her at all. Even when I hadn’t seen Teris for so damn many years, I’d automatically hated the woman he was with, on principle.
Because she wasn’t me.
And now, I felt like shit for it.
“Be careful,” Teris told me, brushing a kiss to my lips. He gave the other women a two-finger wave before climbing back out of the cave. The door closed, and the men shifted forms, taking off into the forest.
“Does he think we’re going to attack you or something?” January drawled. Her stomach was fairly big—big enough that I imagined she would start having a hard time getting around, if she wasn’t already. Then again, I’d never been around pregnant women much, so I wasn’t a great judge.
“No. He knows I won’t wait for him here if I get bored.” I lifted a shoulder.
Summer snorted. “A woman after our hearts, then.”
“Priel would eat me alive if I took off before he gets back,” North said, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “Makes me want to try it.”
January grinned and high-fived her.
“Did you get your magic figured out?” I asked her. “You seem much more in control than you used to be.”
“When the goddess made the magic my own, it changed everything,” she explained. “Now, it responds to my will. Before, it was a constant headache. Fovea thinks I would’ve figured it out eventually, but I don’t know. It was getting worse, instead of better.”
“She said it’d takecenturies,” Mare reminded North.
We all grimaced at that idea. None of us were used to the idea of a fae life span, not even me, though I hadn’t aged at all in the two decades I’d been in Vevol.
“So, spill the beans,” Summer commanded me.
I made a face. “You’ll have to sweeten me up with a lot of cake to get me to that point.”
“You heard the woman. Cake her,” January exclaimed, tossing a hand toward Summer, who was already in the kitchen and therefore right next to the cake.
Summer made a show of cutting nearly a quarter of the cake and plopping it down on a plate, then grabbed a fork and brought it over to me.
“Are we good?” I asked her, still a bit nervous.
“About Teris? Sure. I’ve got all the closure I need, in the form of the sexiest basilisk alive. Something I’m sure none of you would disagree with?” she looked around the group, and everyone shook their heads. Since none of them were mated to basilisks, I figured it was a safe statement to make. “I think I was only into him because of the mate bond, anyway. My feelings vanished the moment I was connected to Remmo. I don’t know how you managed to make it a decade in that bond without developing feelings for Aev, but damn girl, I respect it.”
I cut into my cake, taking a bite.
They were all waiting, mostly-patiently.
