Page 39 of Exiled Mate

“I don’t!” she says back. I hear the door slam, then sigh.

“She’s okay, right?” Rylan asks.

I shrug. “Who knows. I think she’s fine. Ember is… Ember. She’s kind of a force of nature.”

“I get that,” he chuckles. “But still. I worry that the time in the arena… changed something in her.”

I know what he’s talking about. Since she came back, Ember is… different. Tougher. Angrier.

She seems like she has something to prove, even more so than before.

I turn and tuck my nose in Rylan’s shoulder. “I think that if she needs help, she’ll let us know.”

“Hmm. I see,” he murmurs. I feel his lips touch my forehead.

I sink into him. It’s moments like this that I love the best. Little things, touches and words and moments together that I didn’t have while he was exiled.

I look up, my chin on his chest. “I love you, Rylan.”

“I love you, Terra.”

“What do you say we hit the showers before Thorne gets here?”

His eyes gleam. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Rylan scoops me up and tosses me over his shoulder, and I laugh as he hauls me to the shower.

This is what I wanted.

Me. And my mate.

Together.

Forever.