Page 210 of Gift from the Wing

I don’t understand why he won’t talk about her, but it’s hypocritical of me at this point to get aggravated or upset with him over it because I refuse to bring her up as well. Their relationship is a mystery to me, and I don’t want to tell him the truth and have him judge her. Or say anything bad about her.

I might kill him if he did.

A small snort escapes me when there’s a knock at my door and I feel her standing there. I knew she’d been tapping against my bond, trying to figure out what was going on without invading all my privacy.

“Come in,” I call out.

She opens the door and hastily makes her way through the frame before shutting it quickly. I arch a brow at her sneaky little movements and watch as she presses her ear to the wood to listen for noise in the hallway.

“What are you doing?” I ask, chuckling.

“I stole these for you. All of them so I was hauling ass before Gaster and Oakly noticed.”

I throw my head back, laughing when she whips around with an entire bag of pastries clutched in her hand like they’re a bag of jewels. The old man’s been doubling his batches again now that I’m back to eating them, and she really did just steal every bit of them.

“Did anyone get any?” I ask.

“Nope, not even one. Oakly went to the bathroom when he brought them out, so I did a snatchand run.”

We both laugh as she strolls across the room and plops down in my chair with me. She takes a pastry out of the bag and presses it to my lips, then grabs one for herself, and we groan at the same time.

“Damn, he’s got this down pat. He sprinkles some shit in here to make them addicting, I swear,” I say with a full mouth.

“Yeah, he’d never tell us. He’d say the secret ingredient is love.”

Her mischievous giggle wraps around me like a hug and I pull her closer and bury my face in her hair.

My guilt about feeling jealous over her getting a piece of her mom that she one hundred percent deserves eats away at my heart. It’s not the type of jealousy where I’m mad at her or feeling anything negative at all.

I just simply wish I had the same.

I feel like the realm’s shittiest Nexus member for feeling this way.

“I need to talk to you,” she says quietly as I assume my feelings right now drift into her.

“I’m sorry, Willow. I’m not trying to feel this way. It’s such an asshole thing. That’s why I came up here to give myself a minute to get over it,” I tell her sincerely as I pull her completely onto my lap.

“You don’t have any reason to apologize. At all. You don’t think I felt this way about Corentin and Caspian a time or two?”

“You did?” I ask, shocked.

No, I’ve never thought that.

“Of course I have. Granted, I get neither of them act like or even say they need Aurora, but the way she’s always been so caring, sweet, and there for them. Calling just to check on them and ask about their day. Yeah, I got jealous of it. I wanted that too.”

I blow out a relieved breath and thank my fucking lucky stars. It still amazes me how she knows exactly what to say and when to say it, to make me feel better. It’s something we both do often, but damn, it’s a heady feeling every time.

I hope it always stays that way.

“It will. It’ll probably get stronger as we go, but that isn’t exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,” she says, turning in my lap soshe can look at me.

Her eyes can’t lie. They’ve never been able to.

This is a big talk. Life-changing.

She nods slowly, and I mimic her. Whatever it is, is going to be fine, and I obviously need to hear it if she’s doing this with just the two of us alone.

“Your mom was Keeper’s beloved. His only beloved.”

---