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  “We made a mistake,” he said.

  “We did,” Kat’s voice floated over him, much too close. He winced but did not turn around. “At least, I did.”

  She had come to terms with how they’d ended up as mates, and now was ready to make it official? This couldn’t be happening. Not now. He couldn’t give up Adora. He wouldn’t.

  “I don’t love you, Kat. I never did. I know we mated all those years ago, but I don’t want to make it official. I want to be with Adora. I love her.”

  “I know.”

  Matt stared at her. She waved her arm in an arc.

  “It’s obvious. It was obvious to me even before it was to you, I think. And I’m happy for you.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “So you don’t want to mate with me?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Matt’s shoulders sagged, while his heart leaped. She didn’t want to be mates after all. Thank the fates.

  “But—why are you here?”

  “I need you to tell Josh to cancel the union.”

  “You—excuse me?”

  She twisted her hands in the front of his shirt and gave him a shake. “I’m in love with someone else,” she exclaimed. “Henry’s teacher. He’s human, but I don’t care. He’s so wonderful and he adores Henry and I want to be with him, not you.”

  He plucked her hands from the front of his shirt. “Why did you go to Josh and inform him that we’d mated all those years ago?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Because I wanted him to cancel it, of course. I’m not free to marry Peter unless I’m free of you.”

  “Marry Peter?”

  She nodded impatiently. “That’s what humans do. We’re to have a fancy wedding in this spectacular church. And we’re having a reception at this amazing historic home. It’s so romantic. You should see the size of the rock he’s given me as an engagement ring.” Her eyes glowed, a mark of her enthusiasm. He briefly wondered if her human lover knew she was different.

  “Shifters are really missing the boat on this whole mating thing,” Kat continued. “Planning the wedding is half the fun. And it’s only a month away now, so I need you to talk Josh out of approving our union. Now.

  “We were foolish, Matt. I was foolish. I panicked when I found out I was whelping. I knew who the sire was, and I knew he would be a lousy father figure. That’s why I chose you, why I tried to trick you into believing Henry was yours. Because I knew even back then that you were a good man, that you would make a great father. I know you don’t have any pups, but Henry is friends with your nephew, and he talks about you all the time. You would’ve been good for Henry.” She patted his cheek, gave him a small smile.

  “But not for me. We wouldn’t have been happy. And now we both have our chance at happiness. Just tell Josh—”

  “Done.”

  Matt lifted his gaze to Josh, who stood behind Kat, arms crossed, a stern look on his face, but a gleam in his eye. He was probably getting a kick out of how uncomfortable Matt was right now.

  “And I give my approval to mate with your human.”

  Kat squealed and threw her arms around Matt’s neck, dropping a kiss on his cheek. “Oh yeah, one more thing. I’ve paid your brother back all the money he gave me back then.”

  Stepping away from him, she patted his chest and then turned and hurried back to the house, chattering excitedly to herself about weddings and bridesmaids and diamonds. No one said a word until they heard the distant echo of the front door opening and closing, and then the sound of a motor as she started her vehicle and drove away.

  “Now,” Josh said, waggling his eyebrows. “Do you have something to ask me?”

  Matt turned to Adora, twined his fingers with hers and squeezed. “I hope I do,” he said without taking his gaze off the love of his life. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Kat.”

  “It’s okay. I understand,” Adora whispered.

  “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want you to stay here, to be mine forever. To be my mate. Officially.”

  “Oh Matt.” She choked on the words, tears welling in her eyes. “I want that, too. More than anything else. More than my wings even.”

  “Good,” Josh said. “Done. You’re now officially mated. And I’m not taking it back, so I hope you really mean it.”

  “I do,” Adora said, her eyes sparkling. “I love you.” She stared into Matt’s eyes when she said the words.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Okay, I’m out of here, before it gets any more mushy. I think I need to go track down Rachel…”

  Matt hardly noticed his cousin leave the area. He was too wrapped up in kissing his new mate. When he pulled away, he swiped tears from her face. “You okay?”

  Sniffling, she nodded. “I just…I never expected to find my own happily ever after.”

  “Me neither.” He smiled. “I’m glad we discovered it together.”

  Chapter 16

  SLEEPING with Matt every night was certainly no chore, although Adora was struggling with this new sensation of sharing her bed with a heater. Shifters, as she well knew, had an elevated body temperature as compared to pretty much any other species. And whether it was a side effect of moving to the human world or she had simply never slept with such a warm body before, it seemed Adora was always uncomfortably hot these days, especially at night.

  Still half-asleep, she impatiently kicked at the blanket, sending it tumbling off the side of the bed.

  “Oh.”

  Her eyes shot open at the small exclamation, and her brain registered several things all at once. She was naked. So was Matt, who was sprawled on his back next to her, blissfully asleep.

  And there was an Assigner standing at the foot of the bed. With her tall, thin stature, flowing magenta hair, and silky silver dress, she was the epitome of elegance. The most beautiful of all Assigners, and one of the most powerful.

  She was also—

  “Mother?”

  Grabbing the blanket, Adora used it to cover both she and Matt. He stirred, muttered something incoherent, and then opened his eyes, furrowing his brow for a moment before his eyes widened while he stared at the pink-haired Cupid. The other pink-haired Cupid.

  “What are you doing here?” And then realization dawned. “They sent you to take my wings?”

  She had known the day would come, eventually, and as her mother had assigned her to this particular assignment, she supposed it made sense she would be the one to take her wings. Still, it didn’t seem fair. The last time she would ever see her own mother was while that woman clipped her wings?

  “Calm yourself, Adora. You’re getting overwrought, and that isn’t good for you, especially now.”

  “I can’t help it. It isn’t fair. Tell them to send someone else. Anyone else. Anyone.”

  Her graceful, calm mother smiled. “I am not here to take your wings.”

  “You aren’t?”

  Her smooth wave of pink hair gently swayed when she shook her head. “No. I am here to congratulate you.”

  “For what?”

  “For completing your assignment, of course.”

  Adora glanced at Matt, who shrugged. “But I didn’t. He and Kat, they decided not to mate after all. She was in love with someone else. And—”

  “And so am I,” Matt interrupted. “I’m in love with Adora.”

  “I know.” Wings sprouted from her back and her mother floated over to the window and tugged the drapes open so sunlight could pour into the room. “You completed this assignment marvelously. I cannot tell you how proud I am.”

  “Mother, I think you missed something along the way. I didn’t find Matt his mate. I mated with him.”

  “I have not missed a single moment, I assure you. Not even your bravery when those two shifters were trying to injure your friend, and you refused to leave her side. You truly are a remarkable Cupid, Adora.”
r />   Adora was pretty sure she’d never been told she was ‘remarkable’ at being a Cupid ever before in her life. Usually her teachers, assigners, and friends spent their time telling her how she was always going about her tasks all wrong.

  “Now, why don’t you introduce me to this handsome young man in your bed?”

  Adora did not miss the way her mother’s gaze strayed to the vicinity of Matt’s groin. She grabbed a pillow and shoved it into his lap.

  “Mother, this is Matt Tigre. Matt, this is my mother, Ashika Adone.”

  Matt nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise. It is truly a pleasure to meet you in person.”

  The way she said it piqued Adora’s curiosity. “What’s going on, Mother?”

  Her mother fluttered about the room, admiring the framed painting they’d hung just the day before, the color of the freshly painted walls, the new dresser another member of the pack had made for them.

  “Matt Tigre came to my attention fifteen years ago.”

  Matt and Adora exchanged a glance. Fifteen years ago. When he inadvertently mated with Kat.

  “My initial reaction was to send a Cupid to guide him and that other shifter together. You two are obviously quite aware of the way shifters mate.” She waved at Adora and Matt, seated side by side on the bed. Adora felt her cheeks heat and resisted the urge to fan herself.

  “But something gave me pause. It was Matt. He was more afraid than eager to move forward with that aspect of his life. So I decided to wait, to watch him, to see if either they worked things out on their own, or he reached a point where he was emotionally ready to accept her as his mate and thus required the services of a Cupid to guide him along.

  “Years went by. I occasionally checked on him, but nothing changed. In the meantime, my own daughter gave me more and more reason to be concerned.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a disappointment,” Adora muttered, her gaze downcast.

  “Nonsense. You’ve been nothing short of a delight. Your spirit, your insistence on fighting what humans would call ‘The Establishment.’ I knew you needed a fate different from most Cupids. You have far too large a heart to waste in that Procreation Chamber. You would not be able to handle sleeping with men purely for procreation purposes—okay, not entirely purely—” She chuckled at some private joke. “And then to gestate a babe and hand it over to someone else to raise. I did it twice, and it nearly broke me to part with you and your brother. That is why I worked so hard to become an Assigner, you know. So I would be able to have at least some semblance of a relationship with the two of you.”

  “I had no idea,” Adora whispered.

  “Of course you didn’t. I had no intention of ever telling you, either, if you had turned out like the plethora of other Cupids living on Cupid’s Plain. But you didn’t.”

  “What does Matt have to do with any of this?”

  “The more I watched him, the more convinced I became that I knew exactly who his mate should be.”

  Adora glanced at Matt, her eyes widening. He gave her thigh a squeeze and turned his attention to her mother.

  “During that one assignment, when you convinced yourself you were in love with the man you had been assigned to help find his mate, and then you attempted to sabotage it when he actually did find his true love, that was when I knew it was time to put the two of you together, so you could fall in love. I knew it was time for you to retire from being a Cupid and settle down with your mate.”

  Adora’s eyes filled with tears and she impatiently swiped them away. “While I appreciate what you’ve done, I hate that I have to lose my wings and never go back to Cupid’s Plain. I wish you would have let me make the choice on my own.”

  “I did let you make the choice, and you aren’t losing your wings.”

  “I’m not?” Her wings sprouted from her back and fluttered. Matt ran his hand along the edge of one of them, and Adora felt that familiar warming sensation in the pit of her stomach. Probably not appropriate to think lustful thoughts while her mother stood nearby, but she could control those desires as well as she could control her love for the man.

  Her mother floated over to the bed and bent over, cupping Adora’s cheek while she smiled down at her daughter. “It’s been obvious since Cupid School that you are not like most other Cupids. You need the love we give to everyone else, and as your mother and your Assigner, I saw it as my duty to guide you down that path.”

  “That’s why you didn’t give me his dossier,” Adora said as realization dawned. “You knew his relationship with Kat would be in there.”

  She nodded.

  “Why Matt?” Adora asked.

  Ashika shrugged. “Why anyone? Why did the pack master fall in love with a human? Why is the Lightbearer princess mated to a shifter? As you well know, love is not something that is easily explained.”

  Adora gave Matt a shy smile. Then she looked back at her mother. “Can I still visit?”

  Ashika nodded. “I would expect you to, as often as you wish. Although I’m afraid your mate cannot join you. As you know, Cupid’s Plain is only accessible to Cupids.” Her brow wrinkled as she said, “I do not know about the little one, though. It will be interesting to see if it has the ability to visit our home.”

  “Little one?” Adora asked in confusion.

  Matt placed his hand over her belly. “I had a feeling.”

  Adora whipped her head around to look at him. “A feeling?”

  “That you’re whelping.”

  “Whelping?” She stared down at his hand. “Me? Really?”

  Matt and her mother both laughed.

  “What do you mean, you had a feeling?” she asked Matt.

  “When you didn’t get sick, when we were at that rundown old church. That was the first sign. And you’ve been complaining about being hot all the time recently. Plus, you’ve been sleeping like twelve hours a day. And crying a lot. Oh, and your boobs are getting bigger.”

  Adora glanced down at her breasts, covered by the blanket. How had she not noticed any of these symptoms? “Am I really?”

  Her mother nodded. “You are. Congratulations.”

  “It’s so soon…”

  Matt hauled her into his lap and kissed her. “It’s not. I’m thrilled. I can’t wait to find out if it’s a boy or girl. I can’t wait to raise my pup. Our pup.”

  Ashika chuckled. “I shall leave you two to celebrate. Do not be a stranger, my dear.” A moment later, she disappeared into a flurry of shimmering lights, and then zoomed out of the room and disappeared.

  “We’re having a babe?” Adora said in awe, after she left.

  Matt nodded. And then Adora laughed. “I can’t believe I had to get with child in order not to get sick at the least sign of violence.”

  Life, and love, really were strange sometimes.

  The End

  Publisher’s Note

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  About Tami Lund

  Tami Lund. Author. Wine drinker. Lover of romance. Writing happily ever afters, one book at a time.

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  Other Titles by Tami Lund

  Love Gumbo

  Lightbearer Series

  INTO THE LIGHT

  DAWNING OF LIGHT

  LIGHT BEYOND THE DARKNESS

  CHANGE IN THE LIGHT

 

 

 
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