T he morning sun hasn’t even peeked over the trees yet, but I’m already awake.

Wide awake. And not in the good way.

I’ve got everything I ever wanted right here in my arms.

My mate.

My heart.

My home.

And still, my fucking brain is being a dick.

Dragging up old ghosts, tearing open old scars that should’ve healed by now—but never quite did.

She shifts against me, soft skin brushing mine, and the second I feel her warm breath on my chest, I exhale for the first time in what feels like hours.

“Wanna tell me?”

Her voice is pure honey, a balm against the ache I didn’t even know was bleeding out of me.

“Just thinking,” I murmur, brushing her hair back from her face. “About the past.”

“I’d like to know about it,” she whispers, placing a kiss right over my heart.

That kiss? It anchors me. Grounds me like only she can.

“Well,” I sigh. “You know I didn’t grow up in a Herd. Not with other Shifters like me.”

Her brows draw together in concern, but she says nothing. Just listens.

“You were the only one?” she finally asks.

I nod.

“Yeah. First shift was when I was twelve. Came out of nowhere. I didn’t even know what was happening. One second, I was some scrawny kid, the next I was a four-legged horned monster crashing through our backyard shed.”

“You must’ve been terrified and lonely,” she breathes, her hand sliding over my side to hold me close.

“I was,” I admit, pressing a kiss to her temple. “But honestly? What came after was worse.”

Her breath stills.

“No, not like that. But up till then, my mom and Greg, my stepdad, they just treated me like an inconvenience. I wasn’t abused, just overlooked. Invisible. It sucked, but I didn’t know better. I thought that was normal.”

I swallow the sour taste in my mouth and keep going.

“After the shift? Greg wouldn’t even look at me. My mom flinched if I got too close. I got moved out to the old tool shed in the backyard permanently. No floor. No insulation. Just a shitty mattress on hard-packed dirt and a single moth-eaten blanket.”

Arliss makes a sound that’s somewhere between a sob and a growl.

“They made you sleep outside?” she asks, voice trembling with fury. “Like you were,” she stops, tries again, “like you were a?—”

“An animal,” I finish for her, a bitter smile tugging at my lips. “Yeah. That was the point.”

She pulls herself up until she’s half on top of me, her warmth wrapping around my chest, her arms like a shield.

“You’re not an animal, Kian,” she whispers fiercely. “You’re mine.”

Gods. My throat closes up, and my eyes burn.

Fuck. This woman.

“They did something right though,” I manage, trying to steady myself. “When they realized I wasn’t just crazy, they took me to a woman in town. She was called Old Abigail, something of a local legend. People thought she was a Witch. Turns out, she was.”

“She helped you?” Arliss asks, brushing her fingers down my jaw.

“Yeah,” I nod. “She couldn’t fix things, but she helped me understand what I was. She didn’t know much about Bull Shifters cause they’re rare. No steak jokes intended.”

“Ha ha.”

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.

It’s not just biology.

It’s not just magic.

It’s this.

Love. Faith. Fire. Forever.

And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving she was right to choose me.