There was one question I had to ask because, much as I loved Devyn, I wasn’t ready to become a shifter. “And can you create a shifter… you know… by say biting a human?”
“Nope, we’re not werewolves.” He told me the werewolf legend evolved from humans who glimpsed them shifting from one form to another.
“Okay.” I crossed my legs and gulped more coffee. His responses calmed my jumpy belly a little.
“Is Sebastian aware you’re a shifter?”
“Absolutely not.” His strident tone left no room for questions. “We’re forbidden from revealing our true selves to humans.”
But he had done just that to me. “And if you do, what happens? You get hauled up in front of the shifter in charge?” I tittered at my attempt at a joke. It was the first time I’d laughed since that day in the forest.
The laughter died on my lips as Devyn furrowed his brow.
“Yes, we appear before the shifter council and explain our actions, but we’re authorized to tell our mate if that person is human.”
I closed one eye, absorbing what he’d said. “Backtrack.” Shifter council, human. Mate. I was stuck on the last word. “Mate. What is that?”
“You. You’re my fated mate, Heston. The universe put us on earth and made it so we eventually found one another.”
Chugging more coffee delayed my response as I tried to make sense of my scrambled thoughts.
“But if you’re not comfortable being in a relationship with someone who’s different?—”
Hot liquid splattered over the floor as my coffee was forgotten, I crawled toward Devyn and wrapping my arms around him, I sat in his lap. But he caught the cup and most of the coffee stayed where it was supposed to.
I put a finger to his lips. “Don’t say that. I love you no matter what and I always will. I’m ashamed of how I reacted when you showed me your wolf.” This wasn’t the moment to tell him I’d thought the creature was a dog. “My brain couldn’t process what I was seeing.”
Devyn kissed my finger and kissed it again before removing it from his lips and pecking my mouth.
“I thought I’d lost you.” He buried his face at the base of my throat.
“Never.” Grabbing his head, I pulled him away from me and studied his eyes. “They’re a different color, or the same as when I met you.”
“That was my beast.”
A frisson of excitement ran through me. His cock was hard, so perhaps we could have sex in the room because it definitely needed cleaning now. I wriggled my butt against his crotch and his dick swelled further.
“I can feel it.”
He snorted. “Not my cock. My wolf. He’s my beast.”
Oops! I’d have to come up with another name for his cock. Maybe Grant. The meaning associated with that name was big. Very big.
“But on a serious note, where does that leave us?” He nuzzled my throat.
How could I think with his lips on me? “How did you catch my cup?” For a human, that was an impossible feat. Wow! My brain was now thinking in terms of humans and shifters.
“Shifters have quick reflexes and enhanced hearing.” He nibbled my ear. “I could hear you racing around the room before I entered.
Damn, there was no keeping secrets from my… my mate.
“Are we mates?”
“It’s a forever thing, and while we are in name only, we’ll have to mark one another.”
Another new concept.
“But not today. Baby steps.”
