I stare at the calm waters of the Atlantic Ocean in front of us. They’re so eerily calm that nothing feels right. I can’t feel her. The air feels strange. And I’ve hurt her.
“Can you please purr for me, Mase? Please, baby?” she requests, holding me tighter.
I’ve stopped growling. But I can’t seem to find the purr.
She pulls back and cups my jaw with both hands and stares into my eyes.
“I didn’t leave you, Doggo. I swear I didn’t. I traded the cursed ring to buy a spell to help. To help with the Rick problem.”
“I can’t feel you,” I rasp.
“Because we linked with the Young sisters. It wasn’t working so Erica came back. And then it was still touchy because the ring’s curse was so deep, but then Greyson called and helped over the phone. To make the spell. We linked up. Tethered. Like you guys do, Erica said. She explained it. It’ll fade soon. You’ll feel me again.”
I stare at her in confusion.
“We did a thing to… make Rick forget everything he saw,” she says. “It’ll just take a little while for that tether to loosen up. And then you’ll feel me again. You will, I promise I didn’t do anything to stop you from feeling me in order to hurt you. Only to help you.”
I frown.
She scrubs her nails along my jaw. “That thing you see in my eyes sometimes? The thing that makes you call me wildberry?
That’s when I give myself a second, when I stop trying to stop myself from believing that you’re real, that you’re really for me. That you really do love me.”
She swallows and takes in a deep breath. “Because I love you, Mason. I love you so fucking much. Being yours is perfect. It’s a place I just couldn’t believe was permanent because nothing is ever this good for me for long. And I don’t know if I can trust that I’ll get to keep it forever because this is that elusive thing people chase, but somehow I actually have it. Me. And all of it. Not just that little bit for a grain in the hourglass of time that you will one day look back on as the perfect moment, but you’ve been suggesting I get to have it for the entire hourglass of my life? That’s unfathomable because of how completely blissful that thought is. Believing I get to be yours forever is so dangerous because if I believe it and I lose it, it’ll kill me. Does that make sense?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She laughs and puts her forehead to my chest.
I kiss the top of her head.
“Because you’ll never lose it. Believe it, Amelia. Believe that I love you. That I’d fuckin’ do anything to show you.”
“I do, Mason. I believe it. You showed it to me with what you did with Rick. I guess you maybe even showed me before that, but I was so damaged, I had trouble believing it.”
55
Amelia
The fierce way he says believe it – that look in the depths of his eyes? I will embrace this perfection for as long as I’m blessed enough to have it. I’ve never wept as deeply as I’m weeping right now. Because I know how much this man, this wolf, loves me. I know he wasn’t trying to hurt me. I know he saw red when he couldn’t feel me and that he went primal. It was like I could feel him, though, even if he couldn’t feel me. He was in Mason-form but he was acting on his wolf instincts and I felt his agony. I felt it like I had a bird’s eye view into his mind. I’ve never experienced anything like it, but I’m grateful to know what he’s thinking. Because he loves me. He really does. He’d do anything for me.
No way would I believe anyone feels as strongly about someone as I do about my shapeshifter sex god. Especially now. Especially after actually feeling his distress at the idea of losing me.
All along, this little voice inside me has been saying that if only this could be not only real but permanent? I might do anything to have it. I didn’t ever want to believe I’d part with my soul for anything or anyone, but the idea of the rest of my life with Mason Quinn might be just about that tempting. I'm tempted to do whatever it takes, even if I need to lie, cheat, steal, and auction off everything I have including my vital organs. And one of the best things about Mason? He wouldn't let me. He'd do it so I don't have to. But we'd fight about it first. Fight about it, fuck about it, and then laugh about it together under the moonlight, tied in a knot that nobody could ever untangle.