Page 66 of Tangled Fates

Soren would never admit it, but I knew the more time she spent with us, the more he loved her just like I had. It was wrong to have feelings for her, but I couldn’t help it. She was everything until I realized I was pining for my best friend's girl, and I was probably the worst person in the world for doing it.

It had been a blessing and a curse when she broke it off with Ryder. A blessing that I was no longer jealous of my best friend, but a curse that I no longer got to see Serena anymore. It felt like she had broken up with us too, and in a weird way, we all mourned together by throwing ourselves into our work.

We were doing great until Serena called and asked for our help and it seemed we were all back at square one. Seeing her again was like a kick in the balls, it hurt enough to bring me to my knees, and it was like phantom pain each time I saw her.

She was gone and that pain returned tenfold.

Now I knew why Ryder looked like shit, he told us everything that had happened while he had been gone, detailing her funeral. I grew angry that I was robbed of the opportunity to say goodbye to her or even be able to save her after what Ryder had just confessed to us.

She knew she was going to die and did nothing to save herself.

After his confession we all sat down underneath a tree in silence when I felt a familiar gaze. Oria was looking out a window down at us. It looked like she might be in her workspace, but I could feel her apprehension. My heart didn’t know what to feel, it almost felt wrong to go to her when the woman I loved—thought I loved?—for the past several years, had just died.

Ryder noticed her looking at us, immediately growling.

“She’s your mate and you know it,” Soren stated.

Ryder growled again.

“You heard her say we’d share our mate.” Soren sighed. “I know you can’t think of letting her in, but she was made for you. She is the moon and stars, the fucking air we breathe and hearth we come home to on a cold fucking day.”

Hearing Soren speak so reverently of her made me feel like an ass for not going to her earlier.

Ryder snarled before walking away from us.

“He might never accept her,” Soren broke the silence.

“How did you know she was his?”

“When we went to go see Addie, she told us our mate would need a vial that held a luminous liquid,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “At first, I thought Serena was our mate, but it seemed she was talking about a whole other woman.”

“Did you know she was my mate?” I asked.

“No, but I’ve always suspected we would share a mate,” he said, standing up. “This time I prayed to every god I could think of that we could share a mate.”

“The gods probably knew we wouldn’t survive without each other,” I said, looking up at Soren who was still looking up at the tower from where we saw Sunshine.

“I always felt like we were two halves of a whole person, it would only make sense that we stayed together to love the same women.” He looked at me. “Where you are softer, I’m a little harder. When you are calm, I’m a little chaotic. We kind of make the perfect person.”

I had never looked at us that way, but while we were opposites, we did round each other out. As a group, we leveled each other out and that’s why we worked so well together. It's why we were so successful, and why we continued to have clients lining up to use our services.

“If he doesn’t accept her, what does that mean for us?” I think I knew the answer, but I didn’t know if I could be wrong.

“I don’t know, but I know that I won’t give her up for him,” he said, with a conviction I had never heard from him before. “I love Ryder like a brother. Without him, we would have been stuck with a family that wasn’t fair to you. In all fairness, I won’t give up my shot to feeling complete because he thinks he needs to stay loyal to Serena.”

I was conflicted. Everything to Soren had always been so black and white, but with me, I always saw the gray in everything. I guess maybe that's why my name was so fitting. I lived in a world of gray, but Soren was right. Sunshine was nonnegotiable. She was the color in my life I desperately needed to live. I was tired of living in three colors. Oria was the color of sunrises and sunsets because every day would start with her and end with her and I would have it no other way.

“What should we plan for?”

“That he goes and does his own thing while we live with our mate,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“Would it be that easy for you?” We had spent the better part of our lives together and now we were expected to just walk away from him.

“Do you honestly think he would stick around with her being around?”

“We stuck around with Serena,” I countered.

He stayed quiet when I expected him to deny his feelings for Serena.

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