Page 138 of Knot For A Moment

Bonding.

“I was scared,” I said. “Overwhelmed. We don’t have to rush it if you’re not ready. It’s fast, and—”

Jace pushed up on his arms and kissed me quickly. “Take a breath and listen, baby girl.”

Gabe put his hands in his pockets before he looked back at me. “After everything was finished, Roman and I made a stop on the way home.”

“Where?”

“First,” he came and sat on the edge of the bed. “We love you. And I wouldn’t mind biting you right this very second.”

Ash leaned in and kissed my shoulder. “We’re forever. No changing our minds.”

Managing to tug one of my hands out from underneath the comforter, Jace kissed my palm. “This hasn’t been a traditional courting. And we’ll wait as long as you want to. But we want you to know where we stand.”

Roman said nothing, instead passing me the sketchbook he’d been working on. The drawing was us the way we’d woken up. I curled around Jace, Gabriel behind me, Ash diagonally with his head next to mine. My hand draped over Jace, relaxed in sleep.

And on my drawn hand was a ring.

I looked up and met Roman’s eyes in shock. All he did was smile.

There was a box in Gabriel’s hand that hadn’t been there a second ago. Ring glimmering in the morning light. A dark blue stone that sparkled like there were stars inside it, shaped like a diamond. A gold band with smaller, clear stones on either side.

It was fucking beautiful, and I knew the ring. I’d seen it nearly every day growing up when I snuck into my grandmother’s room. She kept it on the vanity in that same little blue box. It belonged to her mother. My great-grandmother.

I looked up at the four of them, words sticking in my throat. My mouth opened and closed, not knowing what to ask first because I had a million questions.

Jace took the box and set it on my legs. I scooted back up to sitting, setting Mango aside, staring down at it, still speechless. “What do you say, baby girl? Will you be ours forever?”

Tears flooded my eyes, and I nodded, still unable to speak. He picked the ring up and slid it onto my finger. When I was little it was always too big. Now it fit perfectly.

Then I laughed once. “I mean, I kind of thought I already was.”

They laughed with me, Roman coming around the bed to kneel beside it and kiss the hand with the ring before kissing my forehead. My jaw. My lips. Anywhere he could reach. “Always were,” he said.

Clinging to him, I breathed him in, the knowledge settling me. I didn’t need a ring to know I belonged with them and to them, but I loved the physical sign of it.

“How did you get this?” I finally asked. “I’ve always loved this ring.”

“Well, when Jace called me, we still had some time to kill while everything was still being settled with the police. So I took a risk and called your grandmother, thinking I’d leave a message. But she answered.” Gabriel chuckled. “It sounded like she was having a party.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, that’s Grandma.”

“As soon as I said hello she knew what I wanted and told me to get my ass to her house to get the ring, and she’d do whatever else we needed.”

“That was the stop you made,” I said, the whole thing clicking together.

“Yes,” Roman confirmed.

Looking down at the ring, I smiled. “I didn’t realize she knew.”

“She did,” Gabriel said. “And she told me to tell you ‘it’s about fucking time.’ Her words, not mine.”

I laughed, letting my head fall back against the headboard. “Of course she would say that.”

“Now, we have a different question,” Ash said.

“All right, but I have a limit of three life-altering questions per day,” I said.

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