Page 75 of Fated to the Wolf Billionaire

The tears spilled over, and he frowned. “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry, Fiona, I never meant to take it too fast, or too far, I… Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make it better, please.”

He cupped my cheeks with torment in his eyes, and I shook my head.

“No, you didn’t hurt me, it was perfect. You’re perfect. These are happy tears.”

He blinked a few times, as if the idea of a woman crying because she felt so happy and loved was alien to him. Hell, maybe it was.

But when I stretched up on my toes and pressed a kiss to his lips, he melted, wrapping me up in the best hug of my life.

We stayed there, wrapped up in each other’s arms in the shower until our fingers and toes were like prunes and the water was starting to turn cold.

He stepped out first, still in caretaker mode as he held up a towel for me. But when he moved to wrap it around my back, he froze.

After a moment where he stayed rooted in place, I started to get worried. “Reed? What’s wrong?”

“Your back— you’ve got mate marks.” The reverence in his voice had goose bumps skittering up my arms.

I stepped around him to the fogged-up mirror, swiping at it with my palm so I could try to get a look at what he was seeing.

At first, I didn’t see anything, until he finally found his legs again, moving beside me and tugging the towel out of my grip. I gasped when I saw them, the thin blue lines tracing over my back. It was beautiful, swirling and tempestuous, a raging storm perfectly captured across the expanse of my lower back. There was striking lightning in the negative space, the lash of wind and rain—but somehow, it wasbeautiful.

It made me think of the poem by Dorothy Parker.

“This is no sea of mine. that humbly laves untroubled sands, spread glittering and warm. I have a need of wilder, crueler waves; they sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.” I whispered the lines ofFair Weather, the words encompassing much more now than they did the day I first read them in a college literature class in my early twenties.

I turned slowly to meet Reed’s steady gaze. “Does this mean that youalsohave marks?”

He nodded, eyes boring into mine with so much emotion, I couldn’t possibly untangle it all.

“Can I see them?”

He stroked my cheek with his thumb and then turned, dropping his own towel. At any other time, I’d probably be distracted by the glorious perfection of his heavily muscled ass, but the beautiful blue marks that wove around his waist had caught my attention fully.

His marks weren’t identical; the color was, thefeelingthey evoked was the same. But his were more the suggestion of a tempest, swirling waves, plunging seas, all hinted at in the swirling depths, as if the storm had softened, melded against his heat into something serene. They started on his back, twirling over the dimples on either side of his spine, but continued around to his front, where a swirling vortex of blue was imprinted up the left side of his chest, ending at the top of his rib cage.

I traced the lines with my fingertips, the warmth in my chest at seeing our two magics intertwined was… so much. Overwhelming in its absolute perfection. I stopped with my hand over his heart, the steady thrumming beat soothing to my tumultuous feelings. He was always so steady, and I needed that more than I’d realized.

Despite all logic, all odds, we somehow were the perfect match. My magic was wild, raging for freedom. His was calm, steadfast. Two halves of one perfect whole. It couldn’t be anything but fate.

When I finally looked up again, my eyes had gone misty for the second time. “They’re perfect, just like us.” I blew out a breath, steeling myself for what I was about to say. “I love you, Reed. I know it’s too soon and too much all too quickly. But damn it all to hell, Ilove you. It’s like you’re everything I didn’t know I was missing, bringing out all the best parts of me with who you are.”

“I love you too,” he whispered, the words soft as a caress and twice as tender. “But the difference is, I’ve known it since the second you fell into my arms, the second you looked at me with those mismatched eyes. You’d been haunting me for months, taking up my dreams, begging me to save you. I’ll spend every day of forever doing exactly that, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about you needing to save me.”

He chuckled, pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Don’t worry, Stormy. You’re saving me too.”

There was truth in those words, a rightness.

We were saving each other.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Reed

We met back in the family waiting room of the medical center the next morning, eager for word of Elodie’s condition overnight. But what we found was an impatient Cysernaphus, arms crossed over his chest and an imperious expression etched into his jowls as he stood next to Gael. Leigh was asleep on the couch, her back to us, face pressed against a throw pillow.

“I’m pleased you’ve enjoyed the accommodations, but you’ll forgive me if I have no desire to extend your stay.”

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