Chapter 476

“I’ve been really busy,” I say, wrinkling my nose at him, unable to help my wide smile. God, he’s just…so precisely the same, isn’t he? All tall and sexy and confident. “You know, since you left me naked and crying on the floor of your bedroom.”

“Aw, come on, Ari,” Luca says with a sigh, the smile slipping from his mouth, his head hanging. “You have to start right in with that?”

“Where would you prefer I start?” I ask quietly, not wanting to be cruel but also knowing that Luca has just got…such an easy way of turning things in his favor, of making it easy for me to forget that he’s ever done anything wrong, ever.

And it usually starts with that pretty smile.

“How about we start with me apologizing?” he murmurs, lifting his soulful brown eyes to mine.

I quirk an eyebrow, letting him know that might be wise.

“That’s the only thing that’s been ringing in my head for weeks, after all,” he says on a sigh. “It killed me, Ariel – after I left, and had like…eight seconds to think about it. I’m so, so fucking sorry – and then when you got kidnapped from that battlefield? And I wasn’t there?” He hangs his head again and I see the true grief and regret that haunts him.

“You didn’t look very sorry at the start,” I say quietly, crossing my arms over my chest.

“What?” he asks, lifting his head again, confusion bunching his brows.

I smirk a bit. “I saw the tabloids, Luca,”

He groans, turning his head to the side.

I laugh, light and easy. “Oh please, you were basically posing – you knew I’d see the pictures –“

“I so was not –“

“Oh yes you were,” I say on a sigh, grinning at him, unable to help it. “With your shirt just…casually unbuttoned like that?” I roll my eyes, shaking my head at him. “Come on, Luca, I know you – you were never a messy dresser until very recently.”

He sighs, caught a bit, lifting his eyes to mine, apology and mischief mingled in them.

“Come on then,” I say, lifting my chin towards his chest. “Let’s see it.”

“Ten seconds into our reunion,” he murmurs, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “And you’re already trying to get me to take my shirt off?”

I burst out laughing, my hand flashing out to smack him on the chest. “Come on! You got it for me, after all. The least you can do is let me see it.”

Luca sighs, putting on a great show of pretending to be put out by this. But even has he does his fingers move to the buttons of his black shirt, quickly undoing them until he can pull the fabric aside and I can see it there – my name tattooed in flourishing letters across his chest, the A directly over his heart.

“Well?” he asks, low. “What do you think?”

“It’s beautiful work,” I say, leaning in to inspect the lettering, which really is lovely. I mean, I’m no tattoo expert, but whoever did it truly did a fine job. I flick my eyes up to Luca with a smirk as I lean back again. “You’re such a drama queen.”

It’s Luca’s turn to laugh now as he lounges again against the tree, not bothering to button his shirt up. Again, deliberate. He gives a casual, handsome shrug, looking like a damn model there against the tree, all dark and moody and tattooed. Which, I’m well aware, is precisely how he wants to look.

My handsome mate came to play, as he always does. After all, his looks were always the weapon against which I had the least defense.

“How’d you know I was home?” I ask, tilting my head to the side, studying him. Allowing myself to enjoy this, but not falling into his trap.

“Did you think it was a secret?” Luca asks, quirking an eyebrow at me. “Your fanatical public were dying for news of their lost Princess. And the press did not disappoint.”

Luca reaches behind him and pulls, of all things, a tabloid out of his back pocket, holding it out to me. Surprised, mildly delighted, I take it from him, my eyes lighting up when I see the picture on the cover –

Jackson covering my head as I duck into a helicopter outside that rusty old gas station on the borders. The picture is hazy – clearly amateur, obviously taken by that clerk we met. I grin, my eyes drifting over Jackson’s powerful form –

God, he does take a good picture –

And then moving to the words across the top of the page.

‘Princess Saved by Mystery Hunk!’

I burst out laughing, delighted, clutching the tabloid in my hands.

“I know,” Luca says, dry. “Mystery my ass. If they knew Jackson at all they’d have rephrased it. ‘Very dull hunk of brick accompanies Princess as she saves herself,’ I think, would be the more accurate title.”

I just sigh happily, pressing the magazine to my chest, eager to show it to Jackson. “I’m keeping this,” I say, ignoring Luca’s jealous little insults. They don’t matter anyway.

Luca shrugs, not caring that I keep the magazine. His face falls into more serious lines, though, as he holds my gaze. “You’re…all right, though? Atalaxia…they didn’t…hurt you?”

“No, they didn’t,” I say quietly, shaking my head. “I’m good.”

“And the pictures of you in a crown…”

I shrug, giving Luca a quick summary of my time, holding out my wrist so he can see Gabriel’s mark there too. His eyes widen at first when he sees it and I note, with a bit of a smile, that his fangs extend a little bit, a growl rumbling in his chest. But Luca tucks it all away quite masterfully and I drop my arm, not bothering to mention Jackson’s mark.

Because that’s clearly visible, isn’t it? Just where the curve of my neck meets my shoulder. Luca’s eyes flick to it, and then to his own mark high up, beneath my jaw. Except they’re different, aren’t they? Luca’s mark has faded now – just a collection of scars. Jackson’s is healed but alive, blushing warm and pink.

Luca sighs, dropping his eyes from my neck, his shoulders slumping. “I’m so, so sorry, Ariel,” he says, shaking his head. “I regret…everything, that day. Everything I did was wrong. I was a…fool and a child. And I’m so incredibly sorry.”

“I forgive you,” I say, meaning it, my wolf howling a little to see him in such genuine pain. I care about him, after all – after everything. And he means this apology – we can tell that he does, both by the true grief we can see in him as well as…well, alongside the little pulse of it that I can feel coming down that’s left of our bond.

Because it’s still there, that little scrap. Not enough, anymore, for us to have a true and vivid connection like we once had. But…still extant. Still my mate, in this tiny little way.

Luca just shakes his head, I think overwhelmed. I tilt my head to the side, thinking that it’s so strange that I…just don’t know precisely what he’s feeling. When I’m so used to knowing.

“I’m sorry too,” I say, reaching for him finally, my hand coming to rest on his forearm.

He lifts his head to look at me. “What?”

“I wasn’t as good to you as I could have been, was I?” I whisper, my heart sinking, because I know that it’s true.

“Ariel –“

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, what you did was…really shitty, Luca. But I was keeping secrets too. I didn’t choose Jackson as you accused me of doing – at least, not at that point. But I was hiding things from you and it wasn’t fair. I should have told you that I had lost my virginity. I should have told you that he was sleeping in my bed every night –“

“He was what?” Luca’s eyes go wide in appalled shock.

I grin a little and shrug. “The details don’t matter.”

“Like hell they don’t!”

I laugh a bit, shaking my head, wrinkling my nose and taking a step away. “They don’t. Not anymore. Just – maybe we can both agree to forgive each other? Move on from it?”

“Yes,” Luca breathes, taking a step towards me, reaching for me again. “Ariel, yes – if we could – that would be amazing –“

“You’re really important to me Luca,” I say quietly, holding my ground. “I always want you in my life. I think that given time there’s space here for a beautiful friendship.”

Luca stops in his tracks, narrowing his eyes at me, straightening up and slipping his hands in his pockets – probably to avoid grabbing me. “So that’s where this is going? You’re friend-zoning me, Ariel?”

I wrinkle my nose at him and smile. “Oh no, Luca, I think that you’ll find that you friend-zoned me.”

“I never –“

“You rejected me, Luca!” I say, laughing and shaking my head at him. “You broke our bond –“

“I held onto it –“

“You broke it,” I say, staying firm even under the weight of his desperation when my first instinct is, as it always is, to say whatever it is that will make him happy.

“Ariel,” he breathes, shaking his head at me, begging.

“When someone tells me they don’t want to be with me,” I say quietly. “I have enough self-respect to take them at their word and let them walk away.”

“But I came back,” he whispers, shaking his head.

I shrug, not giving into it. “It’s done. Besides,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. “I’ve made my choice. And got a new cute little family now to boot.” My eyes travel upwards to the window to my family room where a figure looms in the window, a little girl held high in his arms, both of them peering down at us – one curious, one grim.

I break into a grin at the sight of my sweetheart mate, all murdery and livid at Luca but still letting me deal with this myself. I give a little wave and, to my delight, Marigold waves back.

Luca leans forward, peering up wards as well, unphased by the silent threat of Jackson standing there, all tense and lethal. “Who is that little kid?”

“Jackson’s daughter.” I turn back to Luca, pleased, wanting to see his reaction.

“Wha-“ Luca says, the word falling out on a appalled exhale of breath. “Where the hell did Jackson get a daughter!?”