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And three knots are better than one? Or so they say.
I exhale slowly, repeating what every one of the village’s free clinic doctors have told me for years. Just health anxiety. Perfect specimen of a beta. Extremely fit and resilient. And, my favorite: The only thing that’s wrong with you is your head, girl.
I purr without effort, bending to rub my forehead against hers. “If you’re the same girl I knew,” I murmur, “then you are the one I’ve loved and missed every damn day since I made the mistake of letting you go. And that makes you my queen.”
“You are perfect. Gorgeous and so fucking sweet. I’ll always get you off, no matter how much it tortures me. You can have it anytime you want, and I’ll fucking crawl for the privilege of being the one to take care of you.”
Dair loves it. I’ve never seen him look at anyone with the soft, warm regard he has for the little curve of her lips.
It’s perfect. Our omega has a knack for naming all her creatures. Calling me “my lord.” And shortening the prince’s name to “Ash.” I wonder what she calls Dair. Probably not “dickhead” like Asher and I do.
She has her first public event tomorrow, and the clothes for that are even more expensive—but when I showed her the ensemble this morning, she simply beamed up at me and thanked me for my help. My help—not the Chanel dress or its matching $10,000 purse. She barely even looked at those. But the fact that I went out of my way to take time selecting them… that made her smile. I honestly don’t know who’s luckier to have her for a princess—our pack or our country. Now, we just need her to believe that.
“Asher’s dad clearly thinks I can’t do this,” she goes on, her hushed voice full of hurt. “And his mother was telling me about the public bonding ceremony and designing a new crest and making heirs—” Oh fuck. Did I just start purring when she mentioned babies? Shit. The rumble behind my sternum cuts her off. She blinks at it and swings her wide-eyed stare up to my face. A slight wince creases her brow.
“It’s whatever you want, love,” I vow, impressing my certainty into every word. “You’re our center. Whatever you decide is right for us is all that matters. That goes for everything. Babies, the bonding ceremony. You decide.”
“I know this place is intimidating,” I murmur, stroking a thumb over her cheek. “And the expectations of possibly becoming a queen are… a lot. But, Ivy, we don’t want you to feel like you have to be anything other than yourself to be ours. Because you’re exquisite exactly as you are.”
Sometimes, she lets me feed and dress her. The attention makes her a little skittish, but I plan to wear her down. There’s no better way to start the day than making sure she’s taken care of.
She still sees me in here. Underneath it all. It will be the same for her, I realize. No matter where this takes us—if she’s our queen, the mother of our children, producing heirs for an entire kingdom… She will always be Ivy to me. The girl spinning circles in the rain and wishing on stars. Twined around my heart. Part of me. Is it the same for her? If it is, I never want her to lose that version of me. I want her to keep him. Me. Forever.
“I have loved you since the day I met you. And I think you may be the only person in the world who’s ever known me well enough to love me back. So, even though I don’t deserve it, I hope, one day, you will.”
My heart feels like it’s bursting through a cage I didn’t even know I was trapped in. Pure joy and adoration and need flow from the cracks.
“I don’t need to be your queen,” I whisper, wanting him to understand. “I just want to be your…” Mate? Partner? Best friend? Sincerity fills his features as he bends to skim his nose along mine. “Everything,” he finishes, settling his weight between my thighs. “You’re everything, Ivy.”
Asher reads my face and hums, the sound a soft reassurance. “I’m right here.” He rubs his nose over mine in the sweetest gesture. Hazel eyes burn with entreaty. “Can I have you, now?” He doesn’t need to ask again, but this is Asher. He probably knows, somehow, that hearing him beg helps raze the last of the self-doubt rooted in my belly. The thorny weed curls into dust as he shudders through another plea. “Please, darling?”
How can I feel so complete and so desperate at the same time? How can I possibly have everything and need more?
A tether appears, glowing like the sun behind the clouds. Soft and ethereal. Waiting for me. All this time, he’s been waiting for me. I feel it now. Our rope isn’t connected yet, but even without the bridge between us, I know. This piece of him? It was only ever mine.
The second he breaks my skin, a muddle of joy and pain shoots into my veins. But that’s Dair—a study in contradictions. His light is so much brighter because it’s surrounded by so much darkness. Like lightning—so brilliant against his thunderous backdrop. His love, his trust. Striking the deepest piece of my soul, electrifying it. Giving me pain and heat and joy and wonder before blinking back to a dark velvet night. I might have been afraid of it before. But now, his midnight is the safest place I can imagine.
Bouncing with joy, hitting every aching, doubtful place and leaving complete elation behind. Sebastian. He’s… goodness. Color and humor and heart. Earnest care and teasing lightness—the opposites somehow woven into a single strand that coils loose at my center. So eager. Waiting.
Asher is the patter of quiet rain. The whisper of well-loved pages. The warmth of a mug of tea on a misty afternoon.
His arms lock around my body, pulling me into his chest just like his soul seems to reach for mine, bringing it into his own for safekeeping. For a moment, there’s just blurry bliss. And then, the space where they overlap doesn’t truly belong to either of us anymore. Instead, there’s a little alcove. A secret place that reminds me of the one we used to hunker down in together.
I love you, goose. My heart has always belonged to you—but now my soul does, too.
She knows I love her, right? Please, God. She has to know. I hear him and start to cry, whining as I fling my arms around his neck. I hear you, I tell him, and then repeat the one thing he’s always said for me. I see you. Do you feel how much I love you, too?
For a moment, he only feels breathless. But then it finally hits him, winding into his chest like a single headlight on a dark road. Or maybe like a star, drifting through space. Warm and bright, changing the darkness around it.
“I think this couldn’t have happened any other way,” she told me. “If we’d figured out what we were meant to be back then, you might never have formed a pack with Bast and Dair. You might have just bonded with me alone, like your parents.” The simple truth of that sank in, and my awe brought her shy smile to the fore, the soft curve warming my chest as her joy sparkled into the bond. “So maybe we had to lose each other,” she whispered. “To find them.”
This was always going to be the biggest day of my life. But now, because of her, it’s also the happiest.