Page 11 of Wild Fated Mate
“No. Hell no.” I shook my head. I met her gaze full on, in total agreement and awe. She was nothing less than a goddess, the ruler of my heart and my souls. The only way to prove it to her was to show her.
“Please, forgive me.”
“I—I don’t know if I can, Gavin.” She bit her lip. The fierce woman who’d just stood up for herself looked down at the ground.
My attempt to keep her pure, protect her sunshine from my dark clouds had done it anyway. I’d dimmed her light. My bear roared at me, his frustration with my human side coming to a head.
Fur broke out along my shoulder blades, muscles popped in anticipation of the shift.
I shoved back the bear. This had to come from the man. I hurt her, I had to make it right. From this moment forward she would never worry again about how I felt for her. She would know with every cell of her body and soul she was loved, desired, and wanted.
She would glow by the time I was done. The image of her glowing face, sweetly rounded curves filling out farther, swelling with our child, took over; I nearly busted a nut right then. Those luscious tits would be full of milk, swollen and tender, rosy peaks…fuck. Wrong place, wrong time. And impossible if I didn’t do right by her.
“Give me a chance, and I’ll spend our lifetime together making it up to you.”
“Lifetime?”
I raise my arm, the one tied to hers, the tie that was supposed to last for twenty-four hours.
“This is real to me.”
“We don’t even know each other,” she protested, but her words fell flat, like a line she had to say.
As much as I’d learned about her from my sister, I knew Serena had gotten the same hard sell. I could read it in her eyes.
“You heard the history of handfasting. It’s meant to give us a chance to get to know each other. Just, give me the time, Serena.”
“Gavin. I want to. I can handle rejection but I can’t play games. I won’t be jerked around.”
This battle had been raging inside me for far too long, and I was fucking exhausted. I had to let go.
“You donate your time to do accounting for Roaring Rangers. My sister doesn’t have a lot of close friends, but she talks about you as much as she talks about the girls and Jed; you’re new to Wild Mountain and from what I’ve heard, you fit in as if you’ve lived here your whole life. You are fierce and protective, and yet still so damn sweet. Somehow you were in my system before I even met you, and I was wrong to walk away.”
I bowed my head, ceding control to my shifter side and prayed the magic would save us both. The thin, golden thread of Fate wound around us, flowing through me, binding us together more surely than the string on our wrists. It wouldn't be permanent, not until she wanted it to be.
Her breath caught when I lifted my head.
“There’s something wrong with your eyes. Oh my god!” She gasped. “Are you okay? Are you having a stroke?”
“No.” My voice was pure growl, guttural and dark. Fuck. My bear didn’t care that this was a dangerous moment. A tread-carefully, idiot-human-on-thin-ice moment. He was at the surface, ready to make himself known to our mate. “I’ll be better when you give me an answer.”
Her rosy, flushed cheeks, the way her chest was rising and falling with deep pulls of air, her pupils dilated—she could feel it. The bond was making itself known.
If I wasn’t a shifter, and just some asshole who’d done her wrong, this would’ve been over before it began. If I was just some asshole and not a shifter, maybe she’d already be mine.
She’d have to take the next step on her own. I wanted nothing more than to yank her across that line, like the animal I was. The way my bear was a breath away from doing.
The man in me wanted her to cross it on her own. To come to me. Without being compelled. Without my Alpha power pulling her.
That would be a violation of her trust. Of her free will. Of her choice to make.
I would not rob her of that. But I was an asshole, and wasn’t above using my powers once she’d taken that first step.
But the first one had to be hers.
“Yes.” She nodded once. “Yes. I’ll give this a try. Twenty-four hours for you to prove this is more than sexual attraction. That we could have something real.”
I wanted to roar in triumph. She was ready. Ready to let go of the fear that this was a game. Ready to let me in. Ready to be mine.
