Page 52 of Tides of Fate

“See, kitten? Tsuki’s okay. Dogs are good judges of character, and she knows I secretly love her.”

The relief Gideon feels when his kitten meets his eyes is tangible. And when Nix smiles, vanilla wafts toward him again—Gideon knows all is forgiven.

“You really love her? Are you okay? I’m sorry she tripped you.”

“It’s okay, kitten. I wasn’t watching where I was going—I could have hurt her. Maybe she could stay with you while I prep for dinner,” Gideon suggests.

Tsuki is a smart girl. As soon as Nix calls her, she moves to follow him out of the room but stops to look back at Gideon.

Gideon bares his teeth, showing her who’s the real top dog here.

She just huffs and walks away.

Gideon is 99.9% sure dogs cannot roll their eyes.

Right?

Chapter Eleven: Nix

“Gideon! We’ll see you down here at 8:00 p.m., yeah?” Grayson calls out as he shifts Nix’s new things higher in his arms.

Gideon just raises the hand holding his knife and sings louder, half-smile in place.

“Seriously, how is he so good at everything, Gray?” Nix sighs, grabbing the two smaller boxes. He whistles for Tsuki. “Come on, girl.”

Grayson leads the way along that right-wing hallway, toward Nix’s bedroom.His bedroom. He’s still trying to get used to the idea. Maybe soon, all this space and all these things won’t feel so strange.

When they get to the room, there’s a new bedside rug and a new mattress with a soft white cover. Even without sheets, it still looks nice.

“Oh, hey. I’ll go get your new sheets and duvet, and we can make your bed up. I washed everything, and it should smell fresh,” Grayson says, likefreshisn’t the opposite of what Nix wants.

At least it won’t reek of chemicals and unfamiliar places.

Grayson drops his boxes on the small computer desk in the corner near the window and another on the floor.

When he’s gone, the lure of the mattress proves irresistible. Nix flops face-forward, spreadeagled, nose pressed in deep. It smells like Jamie, Luca, Rowan, and Leo—like mates, family, and home. They must have unpacked it when they brought it upstairs.Thisis what Nix needs everything to smell like.

There’d been so much stuff, holy shit. It had been a mountain of boxes, and Nix is still processing how it felt to have so much stuff—where before, he had nothing.

Was nothing.

What? No. His mates don’t think he’s nothing, even if Hayes had.

With a surprising amount of effort, Nix pushes those memories aside, back in that bulging box, together with the sudden burst of adrenaline he’d felt at not being able to interpret Gideon’s mood downstairs about Tsuki being underfoot.

If he soothes himself by lying face-first on his newly scented mattress, then nobody should have anything to say about it.

Except his soulmate, apparently.

Grayson gives a bright burst of laughter, and Nix admits he must look hilarious.

“Ha ha, Gray. Get over here. It’s missing something.”

“Yeah? Okay, I had Gideon scent these while I was downstairs. Do they smell a bit like onions? Because ew.”

Nix’s mate drops the sheets and what looks like a hundred blankets of various materials and colors on the foot of the bed. What could one person need with so many blankets?

“We’ll get Finn to do it, too, when he and Rowan surface.”

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