Page 86 of Bonds of Fate

There are residual tingles of pleasure pulsing through him, and he feels floaty—steeped in the scents of his mates and still undeniably horny.

When his eyes flutter open, Luca’s heart-shaped smile and shining eyes fill his vision. Waking up to a face full of Luca Wilde is becoming a welcome habit.

“Finn,” the cutie in question whispers. “Baby’s awake. No ambulance required.”

He kisses Nix full on the lips, a swipe of tongue teasing against his own before he stands to go tell whoever’s in the other room the same news…Jamie?

Hmmm. His Alpha is unhappy. It’s sparking along the bond, a sharp contrast to the hazy warmth still rolling through him. It’s objectively a pretty cool feeling, though, the way he can tell Jamie’s emotions from an entire room away if he concentrates. Nix wonders why no one has mentioned that before—it seems handy. However, Luca and Gideon seem to orbit around each other like they, too, operate on this wavelength.

Wait—ambulance?

“Angel, does anything hurt?”

Grayson’s hand skims over his head, then carefully down over Rowan’s bite. The heat of the bath water and Gray’s firm hand on his belly add to his feelings of drowsiness and arousal.

Finn rises from his perch on the lid of the toilet, crouching beside them. The bathroom is bright white, so clean that Nix can see his own blurry reflection in the front of the cabinets.

“Nix?”

“Finnie. Hiiiiiiii.” Nix’s wolf preens to see Finn’s claim bite from last night in all its bright, mottled, purple-and-greenish-yellow glory. His collared shirt is open one button more than usual, so everyone can see how the bruise runs down over his collarbone. Nix feels a burst of pride at how well-claimed his Dr. Merritt is now.

Finn’s cheeks flush a shy pink, and the room fills with a burst of black currants. “Hi, Nix. Any aches and pains I should know about?”

With a smile, he checks in on his own body; other than that low ache in his belly, like he had done too many crunches—he feels great. Horny, floaty, and content.

The thought is followed abruptly by a memory of Leo’s hot cinnamon come and the feeling of Rowan so deep, he couldfeel him in his throat. And then Rowan’s bite. That explains the magenta-colored feeling in his chest.

But then there’s nothing.

“How long was I out? Where is Leo? Is Rowan okay? Can I see them?” His wolf doesn’t like that Rowan isn’t here and that he can’t feel Leo in the same way. He needs to find them—to fix this gnawing feeling before it sinks any deeper.

“Whoa, hey. Hang on a second,” Finn protests, but Nix turns and kisses Grayson on the mouth and then does the same to Finn. It shuts them up momentarily so he can climb out, grab a towel from the rack, and head out the door into…wow.

The room is so calm and relaxing that Nix thinks he could slip into the bed and sleep for a week. The space smells of mocha, black currants, and a tinge of burnt pine, probably from the angsty alpha pacing the length of the well-organized space.

Luca is lying on a pile of laundry on the floor, wiggling and rubbing various articles on his neck and his…dick. They’re new with the tags still attached—Nix fears his baby is risking a paper cut to somewhere sensitive.

He slows his momentum long enough to ask, “Uhh, Luc? What are you doing?”

“Oh, ha. Finn, catch.” He throws a pair of black pants and a white long-sleeved t-shirt at Finn, who’s managed to follow Nix out of the bathroom. “Well, I picked these out for you, and I’m sorry, but Gideon made me choose pants. I also chose some other stuff, but we need to wash it and then scent it again.”

“You picked out some clothes for me?” That feeling from before, when Finn tried to order him things, swirls in his abdomen again.

“I am giving them to you. I missed your birthday, and you missed mine. And we can share this stuff. As a gift to me. Would that be okay? I love to share stuff, and I even picked these matching T-shirts!”

He bends over, naked ass up in the air, and Nix thinks maybe he could go without clothes now, too—he drops his towel.

He hasn’t gotten a bite from Luca yet, and he could…

“Whoa. Nix.” Strong arms are pulling him back from naked, happy-smelling Luca, who is waving two matching t-shirts that sayHe’s My Baby, each with an arrow pointing the opposite way. They’re obviously custom, and the sheer sweetness of the gesture helps him dial back his wolf’s need-to-fuck-and-get-bitten-by-Luca agenda. Regardless of Jamie’s strong arms around him, his wolf has a one-track mind.

“Luca, please. Clothes. He needs a bit of recovery time,” Jamie says, exasperated.

Recovery from what? He feels fine—good, even if you don’t count the horny wolf riding shotgun.

“What happened, Finn? My tummy is sore, but…”

Finn blushes as Grayson comes out of the bathroom in a pair of Finn’s sweats, big dick swinging visibly even beneath the fabric.

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