“Just us. We can get a cake and decorate and…” Leo waggles his eyebrows.
“Ooh, that sounds fun. Do you think I could bake something? I used to bake this really delicious chocolate cake with my mom. I miss it.”
“Yeah! Just tell me what you need, and I will make sure you have everything.”
Nix squeals and tackles Leo back into the pillows, pressing kisses all over his face. “Thank you! I’m so excited.”
Leo was getting excited, too—and not just for chocolate cake.
He catches a glimmer of pink on the side of his omega’s neck. Leo will never get used to seeing those right-side bites.
“This is pretty.” He runs his fingers over it, and Nix shivers. The bite is sparkling next to Rowan’s. “It’s shimmery.”
Rubbing his fingers over the bite after Leo does, Nix’s eyes go enormous in response. “What? Still? Gray had paint on it last night, but we cleaned it off. Do you think I missed some?”
Leo finds a napkin and a water bottle on the nightstand and uses them to rub gently at the bite. The shimmer doesn’t budge.
“I don’t think it’s coming off. Hey, Gray, this paint you used—it’s not coming off. Yo, Grayson!”
Grayson finally focuses on Leo with the hazy look he gets when he’s deep into a painting. “Oh, hey. When did you get here?”
“A while ago. Did you put shimmery pink paint on Nix’s bite? It won’t come off.”
“What do you mean, pink-colored paint? We didn’t use pink at all last night, and it’s body-safe paint, anyway. All the paint should have come off in the shower.”
Body-safe paint? Leo needs a closer look at that canvas on the floor.
Grayson approaches the bed and leans in close with a soft smile for Nix, and Nix tilts his head so his mates can see better.
“What the fuck?” The bite is glowing in the morning light. It’s a deep, shimmery rose that stays perfectly within the lines of Grayson’s bond bite.
“Can I see?” Nix asks.
Leo helps Nix up, and Grayson leads them to a gilded mirror on the far side of the room. A bright ray of sunlight illuminates the space in front of the mirror, and it’s easy to see: the bite is glowing.
“Holy fuck, look.” Nix is pointing at Grayson’s groin.
Leo doesn’t know one person with a dick who takes kindly to anyone pointing and saying,Holy fuck, look.But when they do indeed look, Nix’s bond bite on Grayson’s groin is shimmering silver—where it had been well-loved but plain white before.
“That is crazy. Maybe we should have Finn look at them?” Leo can’t believe his eyes. What should be everyday bond bites in various stages of healing areglowing.
They look so pretty—special. It’s hard not to feel left out, but he’s not going to say anything. Not now. He’ll get his bite too, right?
He must smell a bit off because Nix comes to him and takes his cheeks in his palms, just like he had done when they’d first met.
“Handsome Leo, I know our bond will be strong and pretty, too.”
“You think so?” Leo can only smile, kissing his mate softly.
“I do.”
“The bites don’t freak you out? Are yousureyou didn’t use that color?” Leo asks, raising an eyebrow and nodding toward the canvas.
Nix follows his gaze. The painting is full of soft pink and stormy gray, streaked with glittering silver—but he shakes his head.
“We didn’t use any of those! You can check the paint pots yourself. Gray would know. Right?”
Leo moves to look at the selection of body paints on the bench for himself, and sure enough, there isn’t any pink or silver. When he looks back at the painting, even he can tell it would be a mess if they’d been rolling around on it, but instead, it looks like a magical depiction of two souls becoming one.