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Arliss snorts, and I smile through the pain of remembering.

“But she taught me enough. Put me in touch with two Hawk Shifters who showed me how to control my change, how to blend in, how to survive.”

Arliss presses kisses to my chest again, whisper-soft and slow. “That’s where you learned about mates?”

“Yeah,” I say. “They told me the Fates had someone out there for every Shifter. Someone who matched them. Perfectly. Some never find theirs. Most don’t even believe it’s real. But me? I clung to it.”

I pull her tighter against me, burying my face in her hair.

“I thought maybe, just maybe, if I found my mate, I wouldn’t lose myself. That I’d have something good. Something mine.”

“You have me,” she says fiercely. “I’m yours.”

I nod, my voice breaking. “Yeah, Mo Chroí. I do have you and you have me.”

We lay there for a long moment, heart to heart, soul to soul. Her fingers stroke my ribs like she’s trying to soothe every old wound, and maybe she is.

Because the more she touches me, the more I feel like the broken pieces of me are mending beneath her hands.

“What about after high school?” she asks gently.

“I had plans,” I murmur. “To maybe go to community college. Learn a trade. Get a job that paid enough to keep me warm and fed and far the fuck away from that house. Maybe I’d find my mate someday and start a life.”

“But you didn’t get that chance,” she says softly.

“Not for school,” I say, my voice cold now. “Greg had other ideas. On my eighteenth birthday, he gave me a suitcase and a hundred-dollar bill and said, We don’t need no freaks here. Go on and stay gone.”

She stiffens in my arms, fury radiating from her like a wildfire.

“How could your mother just let that happen?”

“I think she was afraid of me,” I say with a shrug. “Or maybe she just hated what I reminded her of. My father. I’ll never know.”

I expect her to cry. Or rage.

But instead, she kisses me. So tenderly that I almost lose it.

Then she lifts her head, locking eyes with me, fierce and certain.

“Well,” she says, voice thick with emotion, “fuck them. You’re here now. You’re with me. And Kian? As long as I’m breathing, I will be your home.”

My heart shatters and rebuilds all at once.

I kiss her like I’ll never get another chance.

“Kian, please,” she whimpers, and my body stirs, ready to be part of hers.

Hell, I am always ready to love on my mate.

And when we pull our lips apart, I whisper the truth I’ve always known in my bones but have never said aloud to anyone else.

“I love you.”

Her smile is a balm to every wound, old and new. “I love you more.”

“Not possible,” I murmur, and roll her under me, needing to feel every part of her, needing to make her feel just how loved she is.

The morning light finally filters in, casting golden light across the strands of her hair floating down her back, and in that moment—with her cuddling me, her legs draped around my hips, her fingers digging into my sides—I finally understand what the Fates meant by bonded.