Sewn & Scarred (The Fated Creations Trilogy #3)

Chapter Eighty-OneEvaline

Chapter Eighty-One

Evaline

M addox and I didn’t wait long to tell his parents.

Rasa’s face brightened with joy at the news, and she pulled me into her arms and held on perhaps a bit too tight.

“Among all this pain, the two of you can still find the light in each other,” she whispered and when she pulled away, she smiled. “We’re so honored and thankful to have you as our daughter.”

Tears sprouted in my eyes, and not like before. When I’d first met Rasa, I’d wondered if this was how it would be to have a mother. But now, I’d found mine.

I didn’t have no mother, or even one. I had two.

Kovarrin was happy for us but expressed it stoically, as usual.

We’d left the manor after that and headed into town.

We wanted to see our friends, we wanted to celebrate. To have one night of pure happiness, in the darkness that had loomed over us all for so many months.

We sent invitations out, bought all the wine and rum and food we could possibly need, and headed into the woods to set up. Maddox picked out a clearing he said they’d all know.

We spent the rest of the day setting up, and only went home to change out of our sweaty clothes. Maddox wore a linen shirt, half unbuttoned, and black pants, and I threw on a light sundress the color of the sky.

The sun had begun to set when Wyott and Cora arrived.

“What’s the occasion?” Wyott asked, handing Maddox the extra bottle of wine they’d brought.

I stuck my left hand out to grab the bottle from him. We’d hung lanterns all around the trees, and had lit a fire, and when the light reflected off my hand, both Cora and Wyott’s eyes flicked to it.

There was silence, and then there was Cora’s scream.

She tackled me in a hug, her squeal still loud in my ear, and I laughed as I folded my arms around her.

“Oh, Gods,” she gasped into my hair, down and blowing in the wind. “We have so much work to do. You have to pick a spot, and we have to pick a date, and—”

“Gods, Cora, give her a breath.” Maddox laughed at my side where he and Wyott embraced, but then Cora was off of me, and flying into him.

Wyott slung his arm over my shoulders and hugged me to his side.

“Congratulations, and welcome to the family.” He tilted his head. “Again.”

I smiled up at him before I heard Aurora’s gasp.

I looked up to see her and Jacqueline walk up with Sage and Dean, we’d ask them to show my friends the way.

The three of us ran for each other at the same moment, and Aurora already started planning the color scheme in my ear as Jacqueline grasped for my hand to look at the ring.

Sage and Dean walked up behind them to congratulate us, but we all stopped when we saw Sage.

All at once, except for Aurora and Jacqueline who probably never noticed Sage’s eyes before or noticed them now, stilled.

My mouth gaped as I stared at her. Her arms were outstretched, prepared to hug me, but my eyes flicked back and forth between her and Dean.

Maddox spoke first. “I—Congratulations, Sage,” he stumbled over his words.

That seemed to jolt the rest of us.

Wyott stepped forward somewhere beside me and nodded.

“Welcome to the team,” he joked as Cora ran to crush Sage into a hug.

“When?” she asked, and Dean answered as Sage stumbled back from Cora’s embrace.

“Last night.”

They all continued to congratulate her, it was when Aurora and Jacqueline seemed to understand what happened, but all I could think about was one thing.

I tried to form a sentence as my wide eyes settled on Sage, when she and Cora pulled apart. I tried to make a question emit from my lips, but there was only one word that slipped out.

“Magic?”

Sage swallowed and nodded, taking a step toward me.

She reached for my hands, and there were already tears in my eyes as I awaited her confession. As she braced me for the news.

Gods-dammit , I thought to myself.

This was it. It didn’t work, and I’d never be able to be a Kova.

I’d never spend an eternity with my mate.

Sage’s hands closed over mine, there was movement, and then we were standing near the top of Mt. Rominia, exactly where we’d stopped its eruption together.

Then, another move, and we were back with all the others, again.

She was a Kova, and my first thought was that she’d run us, but the distance was too far. That was too fast.

My mouth gaped as the others breathed sighs of relief around us, but my eyes were locked on hers.

“Did you…?”

Her smile widened, and she nodded.

“Yes, I still have my magic. I still have my portals.” She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “They’re much faster now.”

A smile broke through my tears, for her, and for myself, and we embraced.

Soon after, everyone else arrived. Grant and Chrissa, Fredrik and Nash, Saxon and even Oscar who spent the entire party begging each of us for a scrap of food.

My closest friends were here, Maddox’s closest friends, too, and we celebrated.

We drank, definitely too much. We played the game Wyott had invented, with throwing knives and targets, and I absolutely cheated.

Wyott absolutely complained.

“You can’t seriously condone that,” he snapped at Maddox, who sat on the sidelines and watched me and Dean eviscerate Wyott and Nash.

Maddox shrugged, the bottle of rum dangling between his fingers.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I only know that I’m engaged to the greatest knife thrower in existence.”

I giggled at the words, the wine was finally catching up to me, and felt the blush creep up my cheeks at my fiancé’s praise, felt it grow hotter when his eyes flicked over to me. Saw the lust within them.

I pulled my eyes from him, a moment longer and we’d have to go home, and swung my gaze across the party. Cora sat with Aurora and Jacqueline, and even though they were too far to hear, I knew they were already planning the wedding based on their excited expressions.

I smiled and looked to Grant and Chrissa who, when they must’ve thought no one was looking based on the look Grant gave around, looked at each other with smiles, as his hand rested over her belly.

Happy tears pricked in my eyes at that, but I looked away quickly to give them privacy until I saw Fredrik sneaking Oscar more bread and chicken before Saxon turned from where he stood beside Maddox and hissed at Fredrik to stop, that Oscar was going to be sick from all the food he was giving him.

I continued on until I saw Dean and Sage. They were on the edge of the party, and she held her hand up, showing him something with her magic based on the ivy she made crawl higher up the tree. But his eyes weren’t on the plant, they were on her. Soft and sweet and utterly in love.

I smiled as I looked at them all, at all these people I loved, until my eyes landed back on Maddox. The reason I was here, the reason I got to know nearly everyone around us.

I pictured what it would be like to change, I pictured what it would feel like to be Kova with my already impressive magic, and I pictured eternity together.