Page 19 of Wild Fated Mate
“Every story has at least a grain of truth.”
I’d never done this before. Most shifters didn't go around exposing themselves to just anyone; the risks were too great. Those who knew about shifters were a mix. Some feared us too much to do anything, others hated us, and others wanted to fuck us just to say they had. Sadly, a few shifters were so desperate for mates, they didn’t care about being used; some even went rogue which only confirmed fears and scary stories.
“Okay,” Serena said, still looking at me with love and trust in her eyes.
“Those stories about animals becoming people are only wrong about one thing. The truth is, some people change into animals.”
She blinked. She searched my face as if waiting for me to smile, to crack and admit it was a joke.
“Like a metaphor, or an allegory?”
“No.” I remained still. I could only wait for her to feel the truth of my words, the way the solid fact of something new could grow out of ash, the same way lodgepole pines thrived after a fire.
She opened her mouth, then closed it. She didn’t smell scared or nervous. Her heartbeat had picked up, but it wasn’t erratic. She was taking it in. Waiting for more.
The space between us wavered the way it would on a fireground, undulating with a super-heated charge, power hanging in the air.
My bear nudged my chest, as if he understood now was not the time to roar his way out and turn me totally furry and fanged.
I lifted my free hand, not willing to turn completely if I didn’t have to.
“I will never hurt you,” I said, and shifted my fingers into long, black claws, my palm becoming rough pads, my forearm furring over.
She gasped, and leaned back, her wide-eyed gaze darting from my face to my hand and back again.
“That—that’s not real.”
“Touch me,” I commanded, echoing our earlier moments in the woods.
But she was already moving, her hand reaching out the way it had in the forest when she had first reached out to touch the evidence of my wanting her.
I wouldn’t stop her this time. Or ever again.
Her touch was light as she stroked a finger down my arm, the sensations rippling through both parts of me as the bear inside roared for more.
I panted with the effort of holding him back, wanting this moment to go on forever as my mate gently discovered the secret I’d hid from her.
“Soft. Wiry.” She tilted her head at my claws. My goddess gifted weapons designed for climbing, shredding, tearing.
I tracked the switch of her focus to her own wrist. She pulled her other hand over to touch the spot where I’d held her this morning.
“You could have hurt me.”
It wasn’t an accusation. But I dipped my head in acknowledgement.
“I would never harm my mate.”
“Mate?”
I fisted my clawed pad toward my chest. “Shifters do marry, but a marriage is more than paper to us. Mates are forever. Beyond life and death.”
She nodded, plump lips parting and brows raising, as if this was key information she’d been missing.
My cock jumped at the sight, and I forced myself back to the important part. She hadn’t screamed yet or tried to run away.
“You could have hurt me, but you didn’t. You wanted me since the moment we met…and the bear thing is why you avoided me?” Her voice rose with each word. She wasn’t freaking out over my partial shift, but she was questioning why I stayed away.
“I had to protect you.”
