Page 13 of Ghosted AF
“That’s sounds pretty accurate,” he responded with another quiet chuckle. “Give it time. It’ll get easier.”
“What will get easier?”
His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed at the corners as he studied me. “You really don’t know?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.” A thought occurred to me, an inkling, but it was too damn presumptuous to speak aloud.
“What you’re feeling is called a fate bond,” he explained, his tone and expression serious. “It means—”
“We’re mates?” I blinked, my mind spinning with the absurdity of the realization. “No. Freaking. Way.”
“Way.”
His dry tone broke through the thicket of conflicting thoughts, and breathy laughter puffed from my lips.
“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” he added. “You’re not locked into this, and if you don’t want to be mated to me—”
“I do,” I interrupted. “I mean, I think I do. I’m not against it. That is, if you’re okay with it?”
I pressed my lips together and choked down a groan. Why couldn’t I ever just speak like a normal person around him?
“I assure you I have no complaints.” He hesitated, his eyes creasing at the corners. “Like I said, though, you don’t have to decide anything right now. We can—”
“I want to be mated to you. I am very, very okay with that.” I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and exhaled through my nose. “I guess I just don’t really know what that means.”
“It means you’re mine, Rylee Burke.”
“Lucky you,” I quipped sarcastically.
“I think so.”
Okay, well,aww.“You really mean that?”
“I really do,” he assured me. Before he could say more, the closet door rattled against the frame, and a box on top of the mess rolled down the small mountain of clothes. “Stop that.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Not you.” Caius shook his head. “This is important, and I promise I’ll answer any questions you have, but maybe we should stick a pin in it until we deal with the baby bird.”
I glanced around the room, then back to him. “You think a bird did this?”
“I’m sure of it.” He rose gracefully and offered a hand, helping me to my feet as well. “Besides the tool bag, did you find anything else in the living room when you came home that night?”
“No.” I pursed my lips as I thought about it, but I couldn’t recall anything else being out of place. “Nothing. Just the tool bag and the smoke alarm.”
“Are you sure? Did you maybe see a feather somewhere?”
“A f—oh! Yes!” My eyes widened, and I bobbed my head. “It was under the sofa.”
“Do you still have it?”
My eyes darted to the mess on the closet floor. “I do, but I really don’t want to go in there.”
Caius cuffed my ear gently and chuckled. “Fair. Tell me what I’m looking for, and I’ll get it.”
“It’s just a small pewter box.” I straightened my fingers and held my hands apart, palms facing each other. “About this big, and it’s covered in plastic gems.”
Nodding, he flipped the light switch to illuminate the room, then marched over to crouch down in front of the open closet door. I tensed when a breeze kicked up around him, ruffling his feathers and flipping the ends of his hair, but nothing attacked him this time. In fact, the interaction seemed almost playful, andI relaxed when I noticed Caius smiling as he dug through the clothes.
