Page 181 of Scars Like Wings

Tears stung my eyes. I remembered how hard Pops had taken Mom’s murder. He was only present in body, but his heart, soul, and mind were with my mom. He was lost without her. I knew if the situation had been reversed, she would have been lost without him, too. They had to have been fated mates. “Oh, Thompson, I’m so, so sorry.”

Teddy shook his head with his smile back and wide on his boyish face. “Don’t be. They were married for over two-hundred-and-seventeen years. They lived a life of love. It’s honestly a dream—my dream. I want what they had.”

“That’s so beautiful. I want the same thing, the kind of love that lasts for an eternity, that outlives death.” I wiped at my eyes now. I wanted the kind of love that Mom and Pops had, someone to endure, no matter what happened. “So, how do you know if someone is your fated mate?”

“Well, from my understanding, it’s different for shifters like us. We are lucky enough to have a creature in us to tell us immediately that we have found the person. There is a response. They know before we do because they don’t have the same anxieties and things that we do. I don’t know about your dragon, but my jaguar is very… blunt, I guess, is the word? He’s straightforward and simple whereas I’m emotional and, like, five wet cats and a possum in a trench coat trying to be a person?—”

“Honestly, same, but keep going.”

“Everyone else has to go by feeling or something, but my point is that youknowwhen you have found your fatedmate. The connection is instantaneous. You just get each other. Suddenly, you want to be with this person all the time, and you never get tired of being around them. You just want to be in their presence even if you do nothing but sit in silence the whole time, which you can’t do because one of you will find something that you want to tell the other person and you can’t focus on anything else when they are around, anyway. It’s like the honeymoon phase never ends. They ride passenger seat in your mind always. You think about whether they would like something when you are out and about, you learn their coffee order to buy it for them every morning when they wake up, and you just need them to be happy, like you need water and air to survive. They may drive you absolutely insane to where you want to start crawling up walls, but you know that they make you better and vice versa. That’s just what love is: being the best for someone and bringing out the best in that someone.”

When Thompson finished, we both stared at each other. We were slack-jawed. All the magicked items paused what they were doing, frozen. I think the realization and truth of his words hit us both hard, at once, and at the same time.

“Everett is my fated mate.”

“Quinn is my fated mate.”

“Hostia puta.”

“Holy fuck.”

We both leaned back in absolute shock at the revelation for ourselves and each other. It wasn’t just that I was in love with Quinn. I wasmated by fateto her. My dragon roared and huffed at the idea as if in confirmation and to say “I told you so.” That’s why we had that instant connection the night we had met. She had awoken my dragon, and she constantly roared at me to claim her as ours. It also had to be why I couldn’t imagine a life without her. When she did the most mundane things, I had towatch and be around her. Quinn was my world, my other half, because the universe had built us for one another.

“I can’t believe it.”

“This is insane.” I shook my head. “I mean, what’re the odds that we would find our fated mates at the same time? Are fated mates that common?”

“Not among the general populace, I don’t think. I think I remember reading somewhere though that fated mates are most likely to occur in supernatural creatures that are rare. Something about it being a biological defense, nature’s own safety in numbers?”

“But in different species of supernatural?”

“Well, fitches have to come from somewhere.” Teddy shrugged, his magic picking up its work once more.

“But I don’t even know what Quinn is…”

Teddy’s eyebrows furrowed. “Wait, you don’t know what Quinn is? How long have you two been dating?”

“Like, three months? Every time I would try to ask her about what she was, she deflected. She said it was too dangerous for me to know.”

“Interesting.”

“I mean, that means she could be anything, right? Why would the universe fate me to someone that it might be too dangerous to fall in love with?”

“Why did the universe give me a man with the emotional awareness of a five-year-old at times?”

“I’m being serious, Teddy.”

“I am, too, honeybee.” Thompson leveled me with a look that calmed my racing thoughts. “Listen, everything happens for a reason, but you cannot control who you are mated to anymore than you can control your gayness. You are what you love, not who loves you.”

I snorted. “Okay, Fall Out Boy.”

“Hey, they rock out loud. Bite me.”

“So, what should I do?”

“Well, has she tried to kill you?”

I shook my head. “No, quite the opposite. She has killed for me and threatened anyone who has ever tried to hurt me. It’s… pretty hot, actually.”

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