I looked up at that, finding Darcy beaming at me, her eyes bright and full of emotion as a lump rose in my throat.
“You said that?” I asked and she nodded, leaning in to kiss my cheek softly.
“I meant every word,” she swore and I stared at her, speechless before looking to Tyler.
“I was hoping to get a comment from you,” Tyler asked. “So I can get it published by the morning.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said, slumping back in my seat and running a hand over my hair, at a loss, my mind still processing that this was really happening.
I was free of my shame, I had the most unbelievably astounding girl as my Elysian Mate and now the whole world was going to know I wasn’t some monster who’d abused her.
“Yes you do.” Gabriel murmured to me, a knowing look in his eyes and I breathed a laugh as the words came to me.
Tyler tapped on his Atlas as I spoke, jotting them down as I said the only thing I could really say, “I’m the luckiest man in the whole fucking world.”
T he celebrations were pretty intense and I couldn’t help but grin, in part because I was pretty fucking wasted but also because things were just going well for once.
My sanguis frater had found his redemption in the Elysian Mate bond and I was bathing in the joy and love being thrown their way by all of the rebels as they seemed to have instantly forgotten that he’d ever been a Power Shamed loser at all.
Hamish had been sobbing so damn much that Catalina had ended up taking him to bed early, and she hadn’t even pointed out the hairy balls Xavier had cast on his chin as a dare set by Gabriel. The massive balls had wobbled with every shuddering sob he took, and I had to think it was justice for how he’d treated my blood brother over his Power Shaming. I got the feeling Gabriel had seen it that way too as he’d kept running around the hall with Orion earlier, pointing them out to everyone, the two of them cracking up time and again like little kids.
I was enjoying a beer from my seat to the side of the room while I watched the others dancing and I soaked in the sound of fun and laughter all around me. Xavier was caught in the middle of a Tyler/Sofia sandwich, the two of them kissing his neck and releasing happy little whinnies which kept resulting in puffs of glitter flying out over the entire crowd and pretty much everyone in the dining hall was sparkling at this point.
It was almost as though there wasn’t a war raging on beyond these tunnels at all. Almost.
My smile fell away though as I caught sight of another pair of dancers across the room, Seth’s arms looped around Rosalie Oscura as she moved to the music like she was born for it, her body swaying to the beat and hard not to notice. Except she wasn’t the one I was staring at. No. My eyes were on Seth’s hands as they skimmed her ass and she tipped her head back to howl loudly, causing Wolves all around the room to follow suit.
They looked good together. Perfectly fucking matched. Two gorgeous, powerful Werewolf Alphas who would no doubt produce the strong kind of offspring his mom and dad would freaking love to fawn all over.
I bit my tongue against the frustration I felt at watching them together, my jaw ticking as another Werewolf girl with long, dark hair moved in to join them followed by a guy with blonde curls who Seth gave a fucking peace sign to in greeting.
Fucking perfect.
My dick throbbed in my jeans as my smile slipped away and I couldn’t force out the memory of having him on his knees before me. How fucking good his mouth had felt wrapped around my cock and how spectacularly fucking dumb I’d been to start thinking it had meant something more than that to him.
Sex was like eating to Werewolves. If there was a member of a pack who was hungry, they fed them, and if there was a member with a hard cock, they sucked it for them. End of. I doubted he even remembered it now, my dick lost in a sea of cocks and pussies which he’d had before and since.
I was such a fucking dumbass.
“Why the frown?” Tory asked, a hiccup escaping her as she dropped down into a chair beside me and placed a cake on the table in front of her. It was a gooey chocolate cake which looked fucking delicious, but weirdly had a hole in the middle of it and it looked like it might have been sat on too.
Tory shoved it to the far side of the table with the tips of her fingers, shuddering a little as she left it there and turned those big green eyes on me, waiting for my answer. She looked good. Happy. And there was something about her that lightened the ache in my chest a little because her and Darius really deserved that.
“Nothing. Just trying to decide if I wanna hook up with anyone tonight,” I lied, my gaze moving across the room again to where Rosalie was still dancing with the other Wolves, but Seth was gone and I had no idea where he was anymore. Not that I cared. But that blonde dude had disappeared too and there was a lump rising in my throat which made me feel kinda sick.