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“That was incredible,” she said, breathless and spent. “I can’t believe how good that tasted.”
“What?”
“Your blood,” she said, twisting her neck to look over her shoulder. “I thought it would be gross, but it tasted like sweet candy.”
He smiled. Her blood had a similar taste. Intoxicating like a drug, sweet like candy. Perfection.
“So we’re bonded now, right? Like, officially sealed?”
Lifting her hair from her neck revealed the mark he’d seen before in a deep black like a fresh tattoo. He growled in satisfaction. “Sealed and done. You’re mine and I’m yours.”
“You have the same thing, right?”
Turning as she sat up, he waited for her judgment.
“It’s beautiful,” she said in awe, tracing her fingertips over the mark that mirrored hers at the base of his neck. “And mine looks the same?”
“That’s how it works.”
She squealed, and he laughed, pulling her into his arms and planting a soft, lingering kiss against her lips. They were covered in each other’s blood, and hers was all over his face; but she didn’t seem to mind, so he kissed her again.
“You really like being mine?”
“I love you, Aiden. Of course I do.”
His chest hurt with the overwhelming happiness he felt. Never in his wildest dreams did he think he would have this—have her.
And to know as soon as her magic awakened, allowing her to survive the transition, she’d join him and they could spend hundreds of years together without his worrying about losing her to the ailments of humankind, it made everything he’d endured over the last year worth every second.
“I will always love you, Charlotte.”
46
BELONGING
Sitting on the couch in her mothers’ living room with Aiden and Riley felt strange after recent events. Charlotte didn’t know how to act. After all, she met her father and took part in a fight resulting in the deaths of several men and women.
Even if they weren’t good people, many of them still had families. While she sat next to the man she loved as he talked with her mothers and his sister without a care in the world, Charlotte wondered if others were grieving the loss of their family.
“What has you looking so gloomy, sweetheart?”
“What?”
Her mom sat forward and placed her can of Diet Coke on the coffee table, her silver bangles catching the sunlight filtering through the large bay window in their living room. “You look like something’s troubling you.”
Aiden’s hand tightened around Charlotte’s.
“My father,” she started, and both of her mothers stiffened.
Riley stopped playing with Molly, lowering the stick with a toy mouse dangling from it, looking in Charlotte’s direction.
“What about him?” her ma asked, her chin turned up as she tilted her head back, eyes shuttering.
“I wanted to know if you know anything about him. Like, who he is. Where he lives. What does he do for a living?”
Her mothers shared a look before her mom got up and came to sit on Charlotte’s other side, opposite Aiden. “Your father is American,” she said, taking Charlotte’s hand. “We never told you anything about him because you never asked.”
“I know. I was afraid to know because I thought if I asked about him or my birth mom, you’d think I didn’t want to be with you anymore and send me away.”
