Page 2 of Tides of Fate (Fated in the Stars #3)

The Costas estate sits majestically behind decades-old wrought-iron gates, glowing in the warm autumn sunshine. Its terracotta roof and Mediterranean style are surely out of place among its neighbors’ more modern designs. But Leo’s mother, Lauren, has always chosen her own path, and this home is reminiscent of one of her favorite places in the world. It may be extravagant and over the top, but it has always welcomed Leo home.

The open courtyard is empty when they park the Lexus. The flower boxes are freshly watered by a landscaper who makes the rounds of the neighborhood estates. For them, fall means warm-hued flower beds and wrapping trees for winter. Soon, it’ll mean Christmas decorations and snow removal. Leo admires how they create art out of living things while caring for the world around them.

This courtyard had been one of the many backdrops for some of Leo’s best childhood memories. It’s empty now—no basketball net (never his game, no matter how he tried), no bicycles or skateboards.

It had been the place where he and his friends played loud rock music before Leo’s father moved the chaos into the detached garage. The place where they learned dances on weekends or after school, or hung out on the steps waiting for Leo’s mama, Frankie, to bring out snacks and give pointers.

She’d been a dancer for several well-known singers before starting her family and couldn’t resist joining them occasionally—much to Leo’s abject horror. She had been in her element then, and many of Leo’s friends had had crushes.

Ew. Seriously, ew.

“Leo, it’s beautiful. Bet you hung out here all the time,” Nix says, following Leo up the steps to the wide double doors.

“All the time. Come on, you’ve gotta see this.”

Leo enters the code on the door lock—which, as far as he knows, has never been changed since he was tall enough to reach the buttons—and steps inside. The opulence of the foyer never fails to steal his breath.

He disarms the security system, closing the door behind his mate.

The family usually uses the side entrance to the family’s quarters, but this is a must-see.

Much like Grayson had with the Rhodes Pack home, Lauren Arnell Costas had a clear vision when they shipped in marble, wood, and fixtures from places around the world.

Leo thinks it’s the high ceilings, hardwood paneling, and marble floors that make it look like a museum, but the acoustics are phenomenal. He and Luca had practiced their audition for Ripley right here more than a decade ago, and Luca still often snuck away to sing something in here when he visited.

“It’s really nice.” Nix’s voice is so quiet, even in the large, open foyer. “Holy shit! Look at the chandelier!”

Directly across from the door is an enormous staircase that splits into two. In the center of the room, a table holds a decadent floral arrangement—roses, chrysanthemums, daisies, ivy, and sunflowers.

Leo’s Mama, Frankie, taught him the language of flowers—by his estimation, she’s saying welcome and so glad you are here.

These are the guest areas, reserved for times when his parents host business associates and his mother’s celebrity friends.

Lauren has been an actress and model since the late 1980s, and she still takes the occasional role when it suits her—but only when she doesn’t find the director uninspiring and pedantic. Her words.

“It’s really fancy in here.”

For now, Leo leads him past the formal dining area and into the Costas family’s inner sanctum. The family room sits just off the kitchen, both having been recently remodeled. It’s where his family has always spent their time.

The comfortable armchairs and sofa are moss green now, having replaced the teen-friendly leather sectionals from Leo and his sister Maria’s years at home. A large television hangs on the wall, and a table sits nearby, where his father likes to play chess with anyone who stops to admire the hand-carved pieces.

The ebony and teakwood set was a gift from Grayson last Christmas, and Leo swears his father teared up a little when he received it.

Leo breathes deeply of the familiar space, taking in his parents’ comforting scents—black tea, apples, and wheatgrass. His mom Lauren’s current read, The Fabric of Civilization , sits beside her chair, a kindergarten-era bookmark he’d made sticking out from the top. His Mama Frankie’s knitting rests in the basket beside the couch, where she spends countless hours making baby hats for newborns in the NICU.

Sliding glass doors lead to the pool deck and lawns, stretching the length of the room and letting in the warm afternoon sunshine.

It’s the center of their home, and Leo wants Nix to like it so much. It’s his favorite place in the entire house, aside from his room.

It’s a place for family.

Leo flourished in what most Weres would consider a perfect Were home. Not that having three parents was traditional —Were families came in all sizes. No, it was just that, while his alpha father was focused on success and the happiness of his family, Leo had a mom or two at home as well.

When his older sister had arrived, they felt blessed to have a single child. Many Were packs weren’t as fortunate. So when, three years later, Antonio welcomed their miraculous second child—a rotund, giggly, and stubborn Leonidis—his parents had been overcome with joy.

It’s no secret to anyone who knows them that Leo is doted on more than could probably be deemed healthy for any child’s humble development.

Mostly because Leo’s father rarely denied him anything he desired.

But his Alpha birth mother, Lauren—who is conversely stern and loving— did not exhibit the same enthusiasm for her son’s foolish ego or teenage posturing as her husband or wife.

She kept him grounded (sometimes literally), taught him patience, and he owed his humility entirely to her.

Her exacting standards for people meant rarely finding those she liked.

Gideon especially seemed to rub her the wrong way, and they spent the entirety of the pack’s visits sniping and grumbling at each other.

Oddly, it’s not stopped the pack from being invited over or from visiting on the first Sunday of the month for dinner, as their busy schedules allow.

Perhaps it’s that they are too similar?

Leo won’t be saying that out loud where either of them can hear, though—that’s for sure.

It’s a tough life, but Leo endures. Sigh .

Leo’s Mama’s personality, however, sits balanced between her mates: gentle and firm; doting and strong-willed; charming and intelligent. It is she who Leo feels he most resembles in personality, despite no shared genetics at all.

Mama Frankie fostered his love of music, food, and flowers.

It’s her that he meets at the café near Ripley every Tuesday for tea and cake. It’s her whose counsel he seeks when his thoughts don’t lend him peace. It had been difficult not to share about Nix being an omega and his worries about his family with her from the beginning.

In fact, Leo had opted to cancel their meetings just in case he couldn’t keep the secret. Frankie could ferret out secrets the military wanted kept quiet—poor Leo wouldn’t stand a chance.

They stand for a moment at the window, gazing out across the yard while Nix still smells calm. Leo hopes that if his mate can relax when no one is home, then he’ll be able to come for dinner or, at the very least, a brief visit with his parents in the future.

Leo heard once that a slow introduction to unfamiliar scents is the best way to get children used to new people. Or was that dogs? Shit. Well, it makes sense, and Leo will try anything to get the two halves of his family together sooner rather than later .

“I like it in here a lot. Smells good. The other rooms out front are pretty, but this is where your family is when they’re home, right?”

He makes his way around the room, touching some of the furniture and picking up the white queen from Dad’s chess set. When he gets to Mom’s book, he opens it to her current page and looks at the bookmark, running a finger over it with a tiny smile.

“Yeah. Whenever they’re home, they hang out here. When we visit, we do, too. Maybe you’ll want to come back sometime?”

Leo hopes he will—hopes he will love his family because they are a big part of who Leo is, and maybe they can help him heal a bit of that loneliness Leo can see sometimes.

“Maybe…they have to be nice if they raised you, right?”

Nix puts his mom’s book down on the table in exactly the same spot as he picked it up, even going so far as to let it hang over the edge like he’d never even touched it. It feels wrong somehow—that level of attention to detail.

But Nix lets himself be distracted when he moves in to give Leo a kiss that’s softer than a butterfly’s wings.

“They’re the best parents. Good people, too.”

Leo pulls Nix in for a hug, feels rather than hears him hum his agreement against his shoulder.

“Hey, I promised to show you my old room. Then the kittens. Okay?”

“Room. Then kittens. Gotcha. Lead the way.”

Nix squeezes Leo’s biceps instead of taking his hand as they use the back stairs instead of the grand staircase in the foyer, and they’re in his childhood bedroom in no time.

Despite the outward trappings of the grand mansion, Leo has been raised to be humble. He knows it’s weird coming from a rockstar who had wealth his entire life, but neither of his moms had come from money, and they made sure he and Maria did their household chores. They learned to keep their rooms clean and to give time to others.

Even though Leo can only drop eggs and not boil them, he can sort whites from colors and do laundry like no one’s business.

Leo’s had always dreamed of making music, even if his dad and moms hadn’t wanted that for him. They both knew how a life in the public eye could wear on a person.

The soccer trophies and Math-a-Lete ribbons are testaments to the many non-music-related things he’d been encouraged to try, with hopes he’d change his mind. He hadn’t—because it had always been music—it had always been performing.

Finding his mates had proven that to him, if nothing else. It was fate, and LRH was the culmination of a lifetime of knowing where he was destined to be and who he was meant to do it with.

He knew how lucky he was that, even if they hadn’t approved, there had always been a parent at every single one of his sporting or academic events, no matter how busy they’d been. Even when he’d pursued a life in music with Luca and then Jay and Rowan, they’d been there, too. His mom, Lauren, in an LRH t-shirt at their concert of 30,000 fans, is something he’ll never forget.

When he opens the door, Leo is flooded with embarrassment at the state of his teenage room. It’s like he’s invited the hottest boy in school to his room, hoping he thinks Leo’s hobbies are cool.

There are band posters among the ones of hot actors, long passed into middle age, on the walls, and there’s his favorite stuffed animal—an old green bear with a threadbare tummy—on the table by his bed. He thinks about hiding Darren before Nix can comment.

“You were a sports star? And good at math? Figures. Smart and hot.” Nix runs his finger over a faded green ribbon. “I hated math. I had such a hard time at college, but I needed it for nursing…”

Nix stops, frozen in front of some photos on the shelf of him and his school friends. His scent turns to burnt sugar.

What can Leo say? That he’s sorry for his lost dreams, ground to dust by a psychopath bent on Jay’s destruction?

Leo’s worry over Darren is nothing compared to that. Not at all.

“I didn’t like it much, either. I was just good at it. You okay, Nix?”

Leo puts his arm around his thin shoulders and squeezes. He wants to tell him he can do anything he wants now—be anything he wants .

But how can he?

Leo isn’t an idiot. Nix has a lot of healing to do before he can even think about any of that.

“I’m okay. Honestly.”

His words say one thing, but his scent and pale face say another. Leo wishes his mate didn’t always feel he had to placate them or hide his emotions. Maybe someday he’ll be able to entrust them to Leo—because he wants to know all of him.

“It’s okay if you’re not okay.”

Leo doesn’t know what else to say, and any shared story he’s got will come up sounding ridiculous. What has Leo endured or lost in his life that compares?

Nothing.

They are two sides of the same coin. Leo lived the life Nix could have had, and anything he says would just sound stupid.

But comfort and love—he could give those. Empathy doesn’t need shared experience; it just has to come from the heart. And Leo has a fuckton of that to give.

“Come, lie with me. I’m tired.”

He’s not, really, and Nix must know it, but Leo’s of the mind that cuddles are a cure-all. So he lies down on his childhood bed and holds out his arms.

Nix grabs Darren and rubs his nose in it. The scent of Leo’s childhood comforts them both. He doesn’t hesitate to snuggle up and press his nose into Leo’s neck.

“Leo?” Nix whispers, and Leo can feel his lips move over his claiming bite as he speaks.

“Mmm?”

His hair is soft in Leo’s palm, and so is the skin behind his ear. Leo just lets his finger rest on the bolt of his mate’s jaw.

“I’m glad you have people who loved you then…and now.”

“Me too. I am really lucky.”

Leo knows it and has always known it. It’s the one constant in his life he tries never to take for granted .

“Yeah. I missed my mom a lot in the beginning.”

In the beginning.

A sharp stab of pain pierces Leo’s heart—he knows exactly what he means. The beginning of his time with Dawson Hayes.

“But then I sort of, ah…locked them away. In my brain. Because it hurt too much to think about them.”

Nix’s scent tapers away, bit by bit, until it’s gone entirely. If Leo hadn’t been holding him, he might have thought he wasn’t in the room at all—just the ghost of a memory.

“It’s hard to hurt and think of the people we love at the same time,” Leo whispers.

“Yes. That’s it exactly. I know they’re gone for real, but sometimes I wanted her…more… when I was alone with… Hayes, than I had right after they were killed. Made it all so much worse. That’s weird, right?”

Leo clears the lump from his throat. “Not at all. I think you can miss her as much as you want, anytime.”

“Grayson bought me a lotion that smelled like her. It was so nice, and at first, I thought I could wear it to remember her…you know? But in the end, I couldn’t…I don’t know if I can let myself think about her yet.”

Nix’s lashes brush against Leo’s jaw. “Maybe when it’s all over. Maybe then.”

“Yeah, okay. But if you ever want to talk about it—to me, or any of us, or even someone else…we can do that.”

Leo wants to cry at the thought of his sweet, sunshine mate missing his mother so much that he can’t think of her at all. Can’t remember her scent, or how she hugged, or the way her smile was. Can’t hold a book she’d read or cuddle a toy left over from when he was a child.

Nix had nothing from his old life except that picture from the photo booth. Maybe Leo should find out what happened to Nix’s grandmother. Maybe she had some things for when Nix felt like he could think about his mom.

“Talk to someone? Like therapy? Like Luca does?”

“Sure, Ruthie is great. Or we can ask her to refer us to someone just for you.”

“I don’t think I can. I can’t tell anyone about what he did…it’s too…” His voice fades away, and Leo doesn’t need him to say terrible or awful or cruel.

Leo rolls onto his side, and Nix does the same. Where Leo’s eyes are damp, Nix’s are bone dry.

“Baby, there are people who can help. I believe it.”

Nix runs his fingers through Leo’s hair and then down under his ear. “I believe you. But not now. I can’t…not now.”

He sighs, and Leo misses the vanilla sugar scent.

After a minute, Nix presses his mouth to Leo’s forehead. “Hey,” he asks, his deep voice tingling across Leo’s nerve endings.

“Hey, what?” There is an answering heat in his belly, making it difficult to get the words out.

Leo feels Nix’s smile against his forehead.

“Would you…um…want to bond with me?”