shock and fear race down the bond. “Fuck. Fuck!” Ryder let out an anguished cry as he looked between us. “Is this our fault?” When everyone froze, he turned his tear-streaked face to me. “Nix, we haven’t been together in six months. Yet the minute we come back together, and we mourn you as a group, you come back?” He was shaking now, and I reached out to comfort him even as he flinched.
“No, Ry, no.” I knew that wasn’t the truth. “I had to go through the rebirth. It seems like it was just much, much harder this time.” I paused, thinking it over. “I had a choice,” I told them slowly. “There was a warmth, a light, that called me. But I knew I was holding onto something. That I was needed. I think I could have chosen to leave, to move on, but there was always something that tugged me back, a bond that reminded me I was loved.”
“The mate bond,” Joshua breathed, his eyes wide and frantic. “True mates bond for eternity, their souls combining together, intertwining.”
“But there was never anything like that before,” Theo murmured more conversationally. “She revived the day we tried to say our vows…” Everyone froze. That warmth we had felt, that certainty, that connection. What if that hadn’t been just joy at being able to claim them as my own? What if that had been something that kept them truly bound to me?
“You said your grandparents were true mates,” Hiro reminded him. “That’s why you wanted those vows in particular.”
Joshua nodded, cupping my cheek in his hand. “Yeah. They always said it was part of a true mate bond. I just hadn’t realized what would happen when we said them.”
“You held onto the bond,” Damien murmured, his hand still massaging my head. “You fought through a final rebirth, one that should have been impossible with you gone to ash, because you had the bonds to guide you back to us. To tether you.”
“Is that what that pain was?” Killian’s voice cracked on the question and I winced.
“I’m here now,” I replied gently. “I’d do it again if it meant saving you and the ones I love.”
“Never,” Ryder gasped out. “Never, ever. You’re not allowed to die on us again, Nix. We won’t survive it.”
“You were supposed to have each other.” Tears crowded my eyes as I remembered the flashes of what I’d seen, how they’d turned away from each other in their grief. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” That was why the house was a disaster. They hadn’t been here, hadn’t been together. They’d suffered alone, just as I had.
Hiro pressed a kiss to my head and then one to Ryder’s. Ryder melted into him, though his hands continued to stroke me. “We got lost for a while,” Hiro admitted. “But we’d already started finding our way home. That’s what today was, a promise to each other to rebuild something between us. To honor you. To let you know, no matter where you were, that we loved you.”
I let the tears fall as I smiled at them. “I never really forgot,” I told them. “I always knew I had to protect you. That you needed me here.”
“You vowed to be with us forever, Nix,” Damien reminded me, the smallest of smiles on his lips. “If we have to bind you to us to ensure you keep that vow, we will.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised them all. My gaze turned to Killian now, and I slid my hand against his cheek. “Looks like we get to have your happily ever after after all, huh, Abra?” I pushed the memory of what he’d shown me down the bond, the hope I’d held for our future—us all gathered together in this house, laughing and loving together with babies in our arms.
His eyes glowed green as a smile spread across his face. “That we do.”
I yelped as arms scooped me up, and I was pressed against Damien’s chest. “I’m not waiting another minute to start that forever,” he growled, his wings bursting from his back and shredding his shirt as he looked between his brothers, utter joy beaming from all of their faces. “Let’s get cleaned up and show our mate just how much she was missed.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “I have a feeling it will take just shy of forever.”
A laugh bubbled up from my chest as he darted up the stairs, the sound of pounding