Page 28 of Fated Guardian

Coral grins. “I like you, too!”

“Good. Coral…”

She’s blinking up at me, listening intently.

“I like what we have here. Together,” I clarify.

“Me too,” she agrees.

“How would you feel about… staying here? For longer than just… like, moving in with me?”

Coral’s eyes widen. “Like, forever?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Yes!” she cries. “I need to get some things, but?—”

I cut her off with another kiss. “Good. Let me go talk to Thorne, and we’ll go to the cottage to get your stuff.”

“Okay!” She pecks a kiss on my cheek and goes to the pumpkins, fingers outstretched to heal the squirrel damage.

I watch her before turning to leave.

Coral’s perfect. Now, I just have to talk Thorne into realizing she’s perfect for me.

I haveto wait for a minute when I get to Thorne’s office. He’s got some teenage pups in with him, and he’s giving them a hell of a dressing down. It makes me cringe, but he’s a good alpha. One day, he might have to talk to my kids like that…

I freeze.

Could Coral and I even have children? I’m not sure. I don’t know. Even if we couldn’t, I would want her. End of story.

When the pups finally slink out, Thorne is visibly in a bad mood. I’m nervous about what that means, but I also know that I need to ask him about this. And it has to be today.

“Alpha,” I say, nodding at him. “Hard day?”

“I swear, those pups are going to be the death of me,” he groans. “This time, they were at the mall. In Silverthorne.”

I wince. That’s nearly a two-hour drive away. “That’s rough.”

“Yeah. One of them was in wolf form, and the others were trying to sell tickets to pet them. As part of a ‘save the wolves’ charity,” Thorne says, knocking his head back against his desk chair. “Evander happened to find them when he was buying his mate a present.”

“That is both inventive and embarrassing,” I respond.

“Yeah. Well. I would really like to have neither one of those problems,” he sighs. “What can I help you with, Nolan?”

“I want to ask you about Coral.”

Thorne hardens. His eyes narrow. “That’s interesting as well.”

“Why?”

He leans forward, his hands flat on the desk. “Tell me what you wanted to tell me.”

Alarm bells are ringing in my head. But this is Thorne. He’s fair, he’s a great alpha, and I’ve always done anything that he’s asked me to do.

There’s no way that he’s going to say no. He owes me.

“I want to ask Coral to be my mate,” I say. No point in beating around the bush.

---