Page 60 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

“I’m no better than anyone else, Nix. I just have to be true to myself. Like Gideon or you, Jay. We all protect those we love in our own ways.”

Jamie clears his throat, surreptitiously wiping his eye before rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, you did what you had to make sure Withers didn’t chuck us off the wall.”

“Yeah, thanks for that, Finnie,” Grayson says, elbowing Finn in the side of the thigh.

“You’re one to talk. You were fucking badass, Gray. All whoosh and zap and boom !” Rowan waves his hands in a facsimile of Grayson’s power moves. “Fucking hot—and I don’t mean just literally.”

Cheeks pink, Grayson just shakes his head. “It wasn’t just me. We’re a team, you know?”

“Yeah.” He finally meets Grayson’s gaze, caught there for a minute with a goofy smile on his face, before he shakes his head. “Okay, enough mushy shit. This is why I’m a wolf.”

“I, for one, like the mushy shit,” Jamie smiles, kissing Nix’s cheek. “I’m blessed to have you all. I’m never taking any of this—or you guys—for granted ever again.”

“That will be a pleasant change, Jaybird,” Gideon says as he tows a red-eyed Leo into their little circle.

Leo slips in beside Finn, sighing when the alpha pulls him in for a side hug.

Most of the agents have moved out the side door, no doubt to secure the house, leaving only a final few in white forensic suits, scraping samples and putting them into little bags.

Lauren has been waylaid by a tall strawberry-blond man in a tan suit at the edge of the rampart. Her body language says she’s annoyed, but her face shows she’s being officious and accommodating under duress.

“Who’s that?” Grayson whispers. “He’s a really strong magic user…looks hella official.”

There’s a real fear along Grayson’s bond that perhaps he could be in violation of some magical treaty or law. He’d used advanced magic unsupervised, even if Nimue and Ignatius had registered him as their apprentice, and he would hate for them to get sanctioned for his actions.

Luca watches for a moment before tilting his head as if he can hear what they’re saying—or maybe just reading lips.

“Lauren won’t let him talk smack about you. But, he’s actually asking about Nix…”

As soon as Luca says it, the man looks over as if he’d felt their gaze.

The sun comes out from behind the clouds, turning the man’s hair into a red-gold, fiery corona as the light glints off his glasses. Maybe it’s a trick of the sun, but Nix thinks his eyes flash gold behind the lenses.

Raising a hand, he waves before disappearing through the side door and the stairway.

“I guess you’ll live to fight another day, Gray.” Luca smiles, shifting so he can settle between Nix’s legs. “My turn. Give snuggles.”

Nix laughs, rubbing his nose against Luca’s before kissing him softly. “You did really well today, baby. So brave.” Now that Nix thinks about it, Luca has been brave on countless occasions since they’ve come to Florida—maybe even before.

“Yeah, I was. We all were,” Luca sighs. He’s so pretty with his golden skin, burnished by the sun.

“I’d say,” Jamie agrees, pulling Grayson and Gideon into either side.

Now wrapped in Luca’s forfeited blanket, Rowan lays his head on Nix’s thigh, nudging Finn and Leo with a knuckle in their spines until they lie down, their heads resting on Grayson’s and his own thighs, respectively.

Intertwined—head and thigh, hand and arm—they’re connected as they should be, with an unfettered view of the sun over the low wall, they enjoy the sun-dappled blue of the Gulf. For the first time since they arrived at the fortress last night, the sea is finally calm.

Nix feels his bonds flow in an endless circuit, with himself at the center like a hub; around and around in an endless infinity of love.

“Can we go home now?” Rowan whines.

“Fuck, yes. Sounds good to me,” Gideon grumps, before laying his head on Jamie’s shoulder. “I need my kitchen. We’ve been eating like shit.”

“I miss Tsuki,” Leo says, surprising everyone, and sliding a hand up under Nix’s pant leg.

Nix lets his fingers drift over each of his mates, seeking the warm pulse of life beneath their skin—a touch to a sore forehead, the steady rise of a familiar chest, the soft curve of a belly peeking over undone dress pants.

The inside of a muscled thigh, the curve of a still-damp nose, the smoothness of a hand resting on their pack babies, the tension smoothed between storm-dark eyes.

Each connection is deliberate and reverent.

It’s the same finger the Goddess used to return Aleksander Withers to The Plain—yet now, unharmed, it hums with a different kind of power: a life-force flowing rich and infinite through the bonds tying him to these men.

He feels it—the pulse of the Goddess’s magic surging through him.

It courses through everything—every leaf and stone, every beast and being, human and Were alike. The hues of the magic shift and shimmer, most vivid in the waves of devotion surging along his bonds.

It’s pure.

He realizes this is his true gift: the boundless love he’s been graced with in this life and—he hopes—in every life yet to come.