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“Like I said, I’m not going anywhere, Kylie. I found a cabin for me to stay in while we worked on things. However long it takes is how long I plan to be here. You want me to show you what it means to be a mate. So this is what I’m going to do. Eli andAmara can run the kingdom for all I care. The only thing that matters to me right now is this bond with you.”

Tears rolled down her face, but I knew not to touch her just yet.

“What it means to be a mate is to fight for them. This is me fighting for you right now. I will fight for the bond until my last breath. I will do whatever it takes to show you that I want you. You are the perfect person for me, and no one else will ever matter. The goddess chose correctly. I was just too stupid to see it.”

The room was so quiet as my words made Kylie’s mouth drop. It was too hard to decipher what she felt, and I wished I had the bond to tell me what was going on in her pretty head.

That’s when it hit me.

I could.

“I accept you as my mate and luna, Kylie.”

35

Kylie

The way Maximus poured his heart out to me made my eyes water. Then, when he hit me with accepting the bond and reversing the rejection, I wanted to scream. I still didn’t know how to feel about him even being here, and now he had reversed the rejection!

My lycan came to the surface and howled in victory at the feeling of the bond snapping into place. Our souls stitched together like they had before, and the waves of his thoughts and feelings crashing into me almost made me scream. I covered my mouth with my hands as tears rolled down my face, feeling everything he felt.

His despair at hurting me. The way he wanted to hold me but didn’t think I would let him. His hatred of himself for rejecting me in the first place. And then, his quiet contentment as our son rested against his chest.

Maximus’s breathing was uneven, ragged. I was sure he was feeling the same things I was now. That’s why he did this in the first place. It would give me access to how he felt, so I would know he wasn’t lying about any of it, even though my instincts told me he wasn’t lying. But now I couldfeelthe truth.

“Max…” I didn’t know what to say. How could I? I had just spent this whole time telling him how I wanted him to show me he was sorry, and he wanted this bond…

And he did.

But I still needed to know what he knew about Zephyrine’s curse. How did it fit in with my pup? She wouldn’t tell me a damn thing, and if Maximus knew something about it, then I needed him to tell me.

“Do you really feel this way? The bond can’t lie to me, right?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. You have access to everything that is me. I won’t even put up a wall, so you can have access to me anytime and know I am not lying to you,” he said with a small smile. “I won’t let you walk away from this, Kylie. You are mine. I’m sorry it took so damn long for me to see that.”

I bit my lip and waited for the feelings to come through the bond regarding his lie, but they didn’t come. He was telling me the truth. If I couldn’t trust this bond, which I knew couldn’t lie to me, then I would be wasting his time.

Even if I wanted to reject it, I could see and feel the agony he was in right now. He wanted to do everything he could to make me happy. With my confusion affecting him, he would love nothingmore than to prove to me that he wanted this. It was all too much.

With the bond in place, the yearning to feel him, touch him, and solidify the connection became unbearable. It was like when we first met again, and I wanted to put up a wall so he couldn’t sense how much I desired it. The internal struggle of wanting to complete the bond and reject it was overwhelming. But if he wanted to fight for this bond, I should allow him.

That’s when the baby started to fuss again. Maximus stood up and went to the changing table. He quickly changed him and then swaddled him back up in his blanket. When he was satisfied with how tight it was around him, Maximus walked over and handed him to me. When the back of his hand grazed my skin, a fire ignited inside me, and I wanted to beg him to touch me all over. I shoved that feeling down and positioned myself to nurse.

Maximus didn’t say a word but sat down on the bed and moved the blankets off me to grab my foot, starting to knead his knuckles into the bottom of my feet. My eyes nearly rolled back in my head from the sensation, and I tried to suppress the moan escaping my mouth.

“What are you doing?”

He lifted a brow at me. “Taking care of my mate.”

That surprised the hell out of me. He wanted to take care of me? Instinctively, I reached out through the bond and felt how much he wanted to do this—and more—to help me feel relaxed. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but it was too difficult to tell him to stop. If he wanted to take care of me and show me he valued this bond, then I guess I should at least let him try. Thisrelationship needed to be a two-way street, so I needed to put in work, too.

The nurse walked in and told me that there hadn’t been anything concerning, so I could go home now. With Maximus here, I wasn’t sure if that meant I would be going back to Charlotte and Nathaniel’s or…

“You are coming with me.”

The way he said it felt more like a command, and it made me growl at him. “Do you really want to start this relationship off with a command?”

He smiled, which was not at all how I expected him to look at me. “I kind of like this new attitude of yours.”