Page 47 of Rainse
"From jellyfish. It's hardly comparable."
"Not from jellyfish," he said quietly. "From loneliness. From thinking I'd never be worthy of this. You gave me something I'd stopped believing in."
"What's that?"
"Hope."
My throat went tight. I didn't trust myself to speak, so I just held him tighter and let the sound of the ocean outside fill the silence.
When I finally did drift off, it was with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear and his greenskin glowing soft and warm around us both—a light in the darkness, guiding me home.
17
Rainse
The walk back to the main lodge felt surreal. I was holding my mate's hand—my actual, confirmed, chosen mate—and the morning sun was turning everything gold, and I couldn't stop grinning like an idiot.
Verity caught me at it. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Looking insufferably pleased with yourself."
"I am insufferably pleased with myself," I said. "I have excellent reason."
She laughed, and the sound went straight through the bond into my chest. The greenskin along my shoulders shivered in response, and her eyes tracked the movement with scientific interest that was somehow also hungry.
"We should probably look less..." She gestured vaguely at us. "Obvious."
"We look like two people who spent the night in a hut during a storm."
"We look like two people who spent the night fucking in a hut during a storm," she corrected. "There's a difference."
"Is there? I'm not familiar with human social cues."
"Liar." But she was smiling, her hair still damp and tangled, her lips still faintly swollen from kissing. She looked thoroughly ravished, and I was absolutely not sorry about it.
We crested the path, and the main lodge came into view. A few early risers were already moving around—staff preparing breakfast, a finman doing morning stretches on the beach, two human women chatting over coffee on the terrace.
They all stopped and stared.
"Subtle," Verity muttered.
"Perhaps we should have combed your hair."
"Perhaps you should have dimmed your greenskin. It's still glowing."
I glanced down. She was right—faint traces of bioluminescence still clung to the strands along my ribs and shoulders, the aftereffects of bonding. "I can't control that."
"Convenient excuse."
"Scientific fact," I countered, and she elbowed me in the ribs.
We made it halfway across the main deck before Fionn appeared in our path, arms folded, expression somewhere between amused and exasperated. Elise stood beside him, looking delighted.
"There you are," Fionn said mildly. "We were starting to wonder if the storm had washed you out to sea."
"We took shelter," I said.
