Page 21 of Fated In Winter

And I hadn’t even realized I was standing on the edge of the cliff, the edge of the abyss.

Conner may have fallen off that cliff, but I was the one who was still there, clinging for dear life.

And I hadn’t even realized the floor had given way.

And yet Conner was there. His wolf was there.

And my wolf growled at me for thinking I could walk away.

She had made this choice. The goddess had made this choice.

And I couldn’t think.

We stood in front of each other, both of us in our clothes once again, as we looked at one another inside my home.

My small home that I had created out of the broken pieces of my family home.

It was a shrine to all I’d had, and I hadn’t even realized how morbid it was.

I couldn’t truly hear their screams, and yet I told myself if I was close enough, maybe I would be able to. Maybe I could hear their voices. Maybe they weren’t gone. Maybe the former Alpha before Gideon had finally saved us all, hadn’t murdered my parents, hadn’t butchered my family in front of me.

And I was a Yule baby. I was a miracle, and yet I couldn’t believe in them. Not when everything was gone.

And yet, my mate stood in front of me, his eyes wide, gold, his wolf at the forefront.

Conner was just as surprised as me, and I couldn’t even say a word to him.

I’m never letting you go.

Those were the words he had said to me as he had been buried deep inside me, both of us connected on a level far beyond sex and mating.

And yet, who was he?

“Romy?”

I pulled myself out of my self-pity and confusion and looked up at the man who was my mate. The man I didn’t know.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice raw.

I could still taste him on my lips, feel his body on my skin. All I wanted to do was reach forward and rub myself on him, to mark him as mine and claim him as my own. But my wolf had already claimed him.

And I needed time to catch up with that.

I couldn’t just throw myself at him and mark him and tell him that he was mine.

Even though he’d pretty much done the same to me just now.

“I need to go on a walk,” I said suddenly, hating the way his eyes filled with pain.

“Okay.” He let out a breath, stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “I didn’t know that was going to happen. I did not mark you by accident or anything. That was both of our wolves.” He let out a shaky breath, then put his hand over his heart. “I can feel your wolf, Romy. I’m so sorry I didn’t know you before this, but I didn’t know you were hurting.”

He could see all aspects of me. I had bared my soul before him, and I hadn’t even known I wanted to. Or that I could.

And yet, it felt right. That I needed to.

Maybe this was why mating happened. That two wolves needed each other so much it didn’t matter what they, or the rest of the world, thought.

I need time to think. And I had to hope that he was strong enough to allow me.

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