Page 40 of Their Fated Magic

I look at him, surprised. This whole time, he’s trusted her the least. How is it that he’s now worried about never seeing her again?

Arlys stares at Drogo. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Your whole goal was to get rid of her. You made sure we stuck to our plan nearly every step of the way. Every chance we had to change things with her and our relationship, you put a stop to it.” There’s no accusation in his face, just curiosity and confusion.

Drogo looks like a man being tortured. “No, this isn’t what I wanted! Okay? Shit. No! I can never be rid of her. She’s wormed her way into my heart and my fucking soul.”

Then it hits me. It hits me so hard that I collapse to my knees. “Fucking hell,” I whisper, shaking my head in disbelief. What fools we’ve all been.

Drogo and Arlys turn to me, a question in their eyes.

The words come tumbling from my lips. “She’s our mate. If we’d had sex, we’d know it without question. But this feeling, this terrible pain, it can only be explained because she’s our mate. Because we love her. Because she’s our everything.”

“She’s… our mate?” Drogo asks in complete disbelief.

Arlys looks thoughtful, his hand moving to his chest. “She’s our mate.”

It’s like the air has been sucked out of the space we’re in. Like every color has changed its hue. Like every sound has changed its tune. She’s our mate. That’s why, despite everything, we wanted her and loved her so deeply. We, our wolves and our own hearts, have claimed her as their own.

All the pieces fall into place, and we all understand what we’ve been feeling and fighting since we met her. But it’s like for one minute we’re happy, just bathing in the knowledge that the little witch we can’t resist is our mate, and the next we remember that she’s run away. From us. Because we told her this marriage was a sham and that we were going to throw her away.

Because we screwed up over and over again.

“We hurt her,” I say.

Arlys’ shoulders sag. “We doubted her and were unkind to her every step of the way.”

“And even after all we did, when given the chance to betray us with her mother, she didn’t. Given the chance to run away and not fix the curse, she kept going up the mountain. She’s not just our mate because fate has deemed her to be, she’s a good person who deserved better than the way we treated her,” I say.

Drogo puts his face in his hands. “I was such an ass. Such a fucking ass.”

My heart aches for him. “She’ll forgive us. We won’t stop trying until she does.”

Drogo looks at me, tears in his eyes. “I was aggressive with her. I was cruel with my hands and my words. My little mate deserves better than me. I don’t deserve any of her forgiveness.”

“None of us do,” Arlys says, a determined note to his voice, “but we need to spend our lifetimes working to earn it.”

“We have to fix this. Now,” I tell them. “We have to find her and mate her, to make sure we won’t lose her. To finally make our marriage real and show her that she’s ours, forever.”

Drogo nods and stands up straighter. “First, we find her. Then, we grovel. We grovel like no men have ever groveled before.”

“You can do that?” I ask, eyebrow raised.

His dark eyes meet mine. “I can do that. What I can’t do is to ever feel this way again. It’ll destroy me.”

Arlys’ shoulders go back. “So, we find her, we grovel, then we love her forever.”

I nod. “Sounds like a plan.

Please just let us find her.

TWENTY-ONE

Tara

I wake up with a start, the cool cave air sending goosebumps racing over my flesh. Why am I awake? I’m exhausted. Laying still for a moment, I realize that something’s off, even though I can’t quite place what it is. Nothing outwardly seems wrong.

But something is.

The cave’s quiet except for Garrick’s soft breathing next to me. The sunlight filtering through the distant cave opening lets me know the sun is setting. It’s all beautiful and relaxing, and yet I’m lying here feeling tense.

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