Page 97 of Blood and Magic
“I didn’t mate her when she was nine,” I said. “It’s just…ya know…it’s complicated.”
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“What about you? You still with Fenris’s little sister?”
“Hey.” Caelum shook his head and tsked through his teeth. “Lyra and I aren’t together. It’s just…” He cleared his throat and shifted his shoulders. “Complicated.”
“Right.” I laughed and wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him into a teasing headlock, which he wrestled out of by elbowing me in the gut. We smacked each other around for a bit before collapsing on the couch in his dorm, side by side. I thought of our parents and how they might feel about the situation we’d both found ourselves in. I’d like to think they’d be proud of us both for the males we were turning out to be. I’d like to think they’d approve of Maeve, even if she was a Vanderbilt, and they’d be happy with how Caelum had grown up. I’d done my best. Looking at his profile, I noticed how much he looked like our mother, especially as he got older, and a pang shot through my heart at how much I missed both of them.
Six months ago, I wished I’d died. Hell, I’d almost given in to the temptation of staying in that dreamy paradise with Maeve after the attack. But she was right, as she so often was. I had so much to live for. My family needed me, and I needed them.
“I’m glad you didn’t die…again,” Caelum said, turning to face me, catching me staring at him.
“Yeah, me too.”
He squinted at what he must have seen on my face. “What’s that look?”
“There’s no look.”
“There was definitely a look,” he said. “Come on. Out with it.”
I shook my head. “Just thinking about Mom and Dad.”
“I thought you were trying to cheer me up,” he said, clutching his chest. “Fucking Debbie Downer.”
“I think they’d be proud of you, Cae,” I said.
He smiled and nudged me with his shoulder. “Yeah, I think they’d be proud of you, too, Mill.”
Two days later, we buried Holden’s ashes in the woods in the memorial gardens where all the pack’s ancestors rested. Kodiak made a speech about how those who came before us still lived within us, in the blood and magic of the pack. Holden may be gone from this realm, but we could still find him in the ties that bound us together.
“We’re a chosen family for a reason,” he said. “We’re blood bound for a reason. Fate, destiny, magic, it brought us together, and we will always be together. May he never be forgotten.”
“May he never be forgotten,” we all repeated.
Maeve held my hand through the entire ceremony, gripping me for strength and sending me her own in return. Watching Holden’s parents place his remains in the tiny grave sent tears down my cheeks, shattering my heart all over again. I made a vow then and there that I would never wish for death again. There were those who deserved to be here and weren’t. And if they couldn’t live, then God fucking damn it, I would do the living for them.
CHAPTER 29
Maeve
“Hold still,” Sol said, swirling a tiny brush over my arm to complete a spiral design she said was traditional in pack-mating ceremonies. “Almost done.”
“Here.” Ginny came closer and finished a dark streak on my cheek before stepping back to admire her work. “Perfect.”
It wouldn’t last long. Once we got this formality over with, Mill would take me back to his room and do his best to smear it into streaks. I shook with anticipation.
“Are you nervous?” Sol asked.
My stomach had been in knots all day (not the good sexy-time kind), and I trembled with the knowledge that everything would be different after the ceremony. Kodiak would officially make me a part of the pack, and Mill would mark me in the proper spot so we would be joined forever. Maybe some part of me should have been more concerned about that, but I saw how my sister was with her mate, and I wanted that with a wretched passion.
“A little,” I admitted.
“You’ll do great,” Ginny said. “Trust me, I’ve been to dozens of these things. Everyone’s always anxious at the beginning, but Mill loves you, and he’ll be with you the whole time.”
“Unless you’ve changed your mind?” Guin raised her eyebrows and inhaled on a cigarette, tapping ash into the tray on the windowsill.
“Not a chance,” I said.
