Page 73 of Fat Sold Mate
Then he's moving, rising from the chair to sit on the edge of my bed, hands cupping my face with such careful tenderness it brings tears to my eyes. Our foreheads touch, breath mingling in the small space between us.
“You're okay,” he murmurs, wonder in his voice. “You're really okay.”
I nod, unable to speak past the tightness in my throat. My hands reach for him, needing to confirm his solidity, his presence. When my palm rests over his heart, feeling its strong, steady beat, something breaks loose inside me.
The kiss begins with salt—tears falling freely now, mine or his or both, I can't tell. His lips find mine with gentle urgency, the contact sending ripples of awareness through our bond. Relief and joy and something deeper, something neither of us has named aloud, flow between us in a current stronger than any magic.
When we part, both breathing unsteadily, I can't stop touching him—fingers tracing his jaw, his neck, the curve ofhis shoulder, as if to reassure myself that he's truly here, truly whole.
“How bad?” I ask, gesturing to the bandages visible beneath his shirt.
“Not as bad as it looked,” he assures me, though our bond carries the echo of remembered pain. “Shifter healing took care of the worst of it. You're the one who had us worried.”
“How long have I been out?”
“A full day,” he says, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear with gentle fingers. “Magical exhaustion, Luna said. You channeled more power than anyone thought possible.”
Memories flood back—the ritual, the corrupted wolves, Matthias falling to his knees as the cleansing magic tore through him. “Did it work? Is he—”
“It worked,” James confirms, his expression solemn but relieved. “Matthias survived, though he'll never be what he was. The corruption has left him and most of the others. Those who fought with us, anyway. The ringleaders have been arrested, but most of their wolves are… well, they’re confused, honestly, and lost a lot of time. They really weren’t in control. We’re… trying to figure out what to do with them now.”
“And our people? Thomas? Nic?”
“All alive,” he says, though something in his tone tells me there's more. “Some injuries, but nothing that won't heal. Except...” He hesitates, pain flickering across his features. “We lost Elder Victoria. She died saving us, Ruby. Giving us the distraction we needed.”
Grief tightens my chest, though I hadn't known the Elder well personally. She had been a fixture of Silvercreek longerthan I'd been alive—sometimes harsh, always fair, a matriarch in every sense of the word.
“The others will be devastated,” I murmur, thinking of Nic especially, who had lost his grandmother in the most brutal way.
James nods, thumb gently wiping away fresh tears from my cheek. “They are. But they also know her sacrifice saved us all. Saved Silvercreek.”
We sit in silence for a moment, honoring her memory in the quiet way of wolves. Then James shifts position, carefully arranging himself beside me on the narrow bed, his arm a warm weight across my waist, our bodies fitting together as if designed for this proximity.
“I was so afraid,” he confesses against my hair, voice barely above a whisper. “When you collapsed after the ritual... I thought I'd lost you.”
The vulnerability in his tone reaches something deep inside me, some wounded part that has never believed myself worthy of such concern. Of such care.
“You can't get rid of me that easily,” I try to joke, but it falls flat, too much raw emotion behind the words.
James pulls back slightly, just enough to meet my eyes. “I don't want to get rid of you at all,” he says with quiet intensity. “Not ever, Ruby Mulligan. I don’t want to live in a world without you in it.”
Something breaks open between us—the last barrier, the final resistance. Words long buried rise to the surface, demanding to be spoken.
“I've always thought you were too good for me,” I admit, the confession burning my throat. “Even before the lottery,before all of this. You were Luna's golden-child brother, and I was... nobody. The witch-born outcast who couldn't even shift.”
Pain flashes across his face. “Ruby, no—”
“Let me finish,” I interrupt gently. “All those years of being bullied, of being treated as less than... it convinced me I couldn't be loved. Not really. Not for myself.” I swallow hard, forcing myself to maintain eye contact despite the vulnerability of the moment. “I had such a crush on you, even back then. But I knew someone like you would never look twice at someone like me.”
James makes a wounded sound, his hand tightening at my waist. “I looked,” he says roughly. “Gods, Ruby, I looked. All the time. But I was a coward. I went along with how the pack treated you because it was easier than standing up to them than standing out.”
Our foreheads touch again, both of us breathing through emotions too big for our bodies to contain.
“And then there was what I heard,” I say quietly. “That day, after we kissed. Hearing you laugh about someone's size, calling them 'enormous' and 'the fattest thing'... it confirmed every fear I'd ever had. I was so,sosure it was about me, but even if it wasn’t, it—it didn’t matter. It hurt all the same.”
James goes very still, comprehension finally dawning in his eyes.
“The cat,” he breathes, pulling back to stare at me in disbelief. “You thought I was talking about you? Ruby, I was complaining to Thomas about that massive orange tabby that lives in your bookshop! The one that kept getting underfoot every time I came to see you.”
