Finding Home

Epilogue-Nathan

Nathan hurried through the pack house. He had lost track of time getting the surprise ready for Paige and now he was late, Paige was going to kill him.

"Alpha,"  Dorothea linked him. "From Beta Patrick's posture, I'm pretty sure your Luna is giving him hell about you being late."

He hurried out of the pack house. "I'm on my way right now, I lost track of time. Tell Patrick to pass it along."

"You know, you could just link your mate yourself."

"You've become a lot more snarky since becoming Beta." They had decided to follow an older tradition of both the Alpha and Luna having officers. Dorothea was a natural fit to be Paige's Beta.

"Blame Paige. She brings it out in me." 

Nathan made it to the Goddess's Clearing and signaled for them to start the music as everyone took their places. Binding ceremonies, while like human weddings, weren't entirely the same. They didn't have bridal parties or bridesmaids and they didn't walk down the aisle before the "bride". Each mate stood with their families behind them, whether that was given or chosen family it didn't matter. Micah and Sophie took their places on Paige's side as Allen and James stood on his. Paige's mother would stand with her siblings after walking with her down the aisle. She wasn't giving her away like human weddings, but it was an honor for a family member to walk the final steps of someone's old life with them. Binding was a life changing event, it was comforting to have someone to walk that with them.

The strings swelled and stilled and the quite oboe took over. Nathan looked up to where Paige stepped out of her tent and his breath caught. She looked a vision a her deep forest teal green dress. Her auburn curls were left loose and cascaded down her shoulders. Her dress was flowy and loose but still hit her curves in all the right places. There was a subtle slit that showed a peak of her long legs that Nathan loved.

He brought his gaze to her face as she drew near him. He saw such love and adoration there that he wondered how he had ever walked away from her the first time. She kissed her mother on the cheek and handed her bouquet off to her sister before turning to look at him. She smiled and it took his breath away all over again.

"Ladies and gentleman," Dorothea started. "We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life's most beautiful moments. We are all present to give recognition to the joy and beauty of the love Nathan and Paige have created, and to publicly witness the final step in the creation of the outward manifestation of the internal bond they have already created."

"As many of you know," Patrick picked up. "Normally, werewolves wait for their binding ceremony to mark each other and complete their binding. However, Nathan and Paige got excited and jumped ahead a little bit." Everyone gave a slight chuckle at his words.

"I have no regrets." Nathan joked and was met with more laughs.

"While Paige and Nathan's love has made them a little overly excited, we are gathered here to join in the celebration and acknowledgment of that binding." Patrick continued. He took a moment to explain the significance of the mate bond and the reason for it's creation. When they got to the moment in the ceremony where Nathan and Paige spoke to each other Nathan gestured for Paige to go first.

"My love," she started, and Nathan knew it was a mistake to let her go first. "From the very first moment we met, you infuriated me. I thought I had never met a more arrogant or self-absorbed wolf. I told you off in that bar thinking I'd never see you again. When I first left the pack, I was trying to find a home amongst the humans. I wanted to leave everything supernatural behind me and exist as something I thought I was. Instead I found you. You were the opposite of everything I thought I wanted. I thought you were the big bad wolf that would huff and puff and blow my house down. And you did, but you didn't leave me homeless.

"They say that falling in love is like having butterflies in your stomach and a whole list of things that sound more like a panic attack than love. Luckily, I had none of that with you. With you I felt calm. It was like coming back to someone I had known for a long time. Your love embraced me in a blanket of warmth and serenity that I did not know could exist. With you, I felt home. Your love built me a place of safety and belonging, of joy and friendship, of peace and contentment.

"From the moment our paths crossed, you captivated me, challenged me, infuriated me and helped me to improve in ways no person or wolf has done before. Without even knowing it I fell in love with you. And I have continued to fall in love with you again and again.

"Today I promise to be true to you as you have been to me. I promise to support and encourage you, to challenge and frustrate you. I don't believe in much but I believe in this. I believe in us. I vow to hold your hand in mine, to be a place for you to lay your head down and rest. I vow to hold your heart in mine. I vow to never say goodbye again. You are mine, and I vow to be yours. Now and forever."

Nathan, who had started crying when she talked about home, wiped the tears from his face and said, "Goddess I knew I shouldn't have let you go first." Everyone laughed at him. Sophie handed over the tissues she had stashed away somewhere for Paige to Nathan and he wiped his face. He took a few breaths before starting.

"Paige, meeting like you was like seeing the first rays of sun after the winter solstice. Through the dark haze of my sorrow and hurt you shown like a beacon of hope and the promise a warmer, brighter future. And though you wanted nothing to do with me, I knew that by meeting you my life would be irrevocably changed.

"In a part of the world where 4.2 billion people live in a circle just 2000 miles across, where more people exist inside the circle than outside or it, we kept running into each other. I don't think that was a accident. We've been told that fate isn't set in stone, that there are plenty of things that can tweak the strings of fate. But from the moment I met you I knew that there would never be anyone else for me.

"Today is the equinox, a celebration of balance. A time where neither day nor night rules. I vow to carry this balance into our future. I vow to never rule over you but to stand with you. To be a shoulder to lean on and hand to hold. You once told me that you were tough and that you could take care of yourself. I have seen you do that. I have seen you carry more than any one person should. I know you can and will always take care of yourself, but if you'll let me, I'll join you and we will take care of each other.

"I can't promise you that dark clouds will never hover over our lives or that the future will bring us many rainbows. I can't promise that tomorrow will be perfect or that life will be easy. But I can promise you my everlasting devotion, my loyalty, my respect, and my unconditional love for a lifetime.

"I vow to stand by your side as we face all that life has to offer. I vow to love you without condition and to honor you each and every day. I vow to put you first and to never leave you again. You are mine, and I vow to be yours. Now and forever."