Page 96 of Soul Bound

The sound of footsteps approaching has me turning around. Winslow walks out of the tree line and as always, the second I spot her, my wolf stills in my head and my chest squeezes. I can’t believe I’m going to be able to call this girl my mate for the rest of my life.

I’m so lucky.

She is the most beautiful girl in the world.And she’s all mine.

Pru and Remi weren’t kidding when they said they were going to go all out on Winslow’s hair and attire. Her hair has been curled into soft waves, leaving it loose to hang down her shoulders and back. The strands look shiny in the moonlight and my fingers itch to run through her long locks.

She wears a knee-length black lace dress with bell sleeves, officially making her look like the witch she is. My eyes travel down her bare legs and my lips twitch when she’s wearing her signature black boots.

Winslow must see where I’m looking because she laughs softly. “They tried to put me in heels, but I told them I wasn’t hiking out here in stilettos.”

“I like the boots.” I honestly couldn’t picture her wearing anything else. “They’reyou.”

She walks toward me, but her eyes are focused on the cabin. “Ranger…it’s beautiful.” She pauses just a couple feet away from me, completely captivated by what I’d set up for her.

I walk up behind her and wrap my arms around her middle. “I glad you like it, I wanted it to be special for you.”

She tilts her head back, so she can look at me. “I told you before, I don’t care where we’re mated, just as long as by the end of tonight I get to call you my mate.”

“I’m already yours—my heart, my soul—they belong to you, Arizona.” I kiss her forehead. “I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble you get us into next.”

She grins. “I’m not the troublemaker,” she argues.

“We both know that’s a lie.”

She turns around and playfully swats at my chest. I grab her hand before she can hit me and tug her abruptly to me. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” I kiss her softly. “I especially like when we get into trouble together.”

She scowls. “Yes, it endedreallywell for you the last time we got into trouble.” Her words drip with sarcasm, but I still see the residual fear in her eyes.

I know when I died, it had wrecked Winslow. Jax told me how she reacted and honestly, I would have reacted the same way if I had to watch her bleed out in front of me. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to be in her shoes. I would have crumbled right then and there with no chance of ever standing again. The pain of losing my mate would have consumed me until there was nothing left but an empty shell of a person. My life wouldn’t have been worth living anymore without her.

We’ve been sticking close together this past week, never spending more than a couple minutes apart at a time. We don’t say it, but we are both still shaken by what happened, and we want to keep an eye on each other at all times, just to make sure we’re both okay. Winslow has found excuses to touch my chest all week, her fingers tracing over the scar the bullet left. And at night when we lay in bed together, she keeps her ear pressed over my heart, just to make sure it’s still beating.

The first couple of nights back home, she had nightmares and woke up crying my name. It breaks my heart she’s still reliving my death in her sleep. All I can do to console her is to hold her tightly against me until she falls asleep again. It’s been two nights since her last bad dream, I hope for her sake they’re finally going away.

I hold her face in my hands and look into those big eyes of hers. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. You don’t have to worry anymore,” I promise her.

“You better not, because I will follow you into the afterlife and kick your ass,” she vows.

“I don’t doubt it for a second.” I kiss her forehead before I reach down and take her hand. I pull her toward the structure that will someday soon be our home. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

We climb the makeshift stairs and stand under the Christmas lights. The mating aura around her sparkles brightly under them. She tilts her head back and looks at all the lights that hang above us. While she’s busy looking around, I reach for the rolled-up blueprints the architect had dropped off today. I unfurl them and hold them out so she can look them over.

Winslow gasps as she looks at the rendering of what will be our house. “The original plan I had just didn’t fit anymore,” I explain. “I wanted to create something that fit both of us.”

The cabin I was building originally was too rustic, too woodsy—it didn’t exactly fither.

“Ranger.” She shakes her head. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble, I would live anywhere with you.”

“I know that, but I wanted to do this. I wanted to create the perfect home for us. It was important to me both of our styles were incorporated in the design, plus, I think after a while a one-room cabin would get a little tight.”

She bites her lip and looks at the design in front of her. The architect had listened to me perfectly when I told him I wanted a cabin style home, but with a modern contemporary edge. The roofs will be slanted and made of metal. The siding is made of vertical wood planks that will be painted a dark charcoal color. I asked the architect to add lots of floor to ceiling windows, so Winslow never feels trapped and there is always plenty of light for her. She’s been surrounded by darkness long enough. The best part is it will be built up off the ground, elevated by supporting wood beams. The large windows will make it seem like we’re living up in the trees.

It’s the perfect mix of rustic, contemporary, and whimsical. The perfect mix of us.

“It’s like a treehouse,” she muses.

I smile. “Exactly.”

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