Page 1 of Wild Fated Mate
1
Gavin
“Uncle Gavin, pleeease?”
“No.”
“It’s for a good cause!” The little manipulators batted their big eyes at me.
“Not doing it,” I growled back and glared at my nieces.
The 3 Bears Bakery sign flapped in the cool mountain breeze, the sun barely breaking over the large fields that held the festival. It was too early for this shit.
They didn’t know what they were asking. I’d rather be in a pile of burning brush with a fire raging around me and not even my claws to dig a firebreak than get on stage for some crazy charity stunt.
“Mom was supposed to do it, but when we reminded her, Jed made that growly noise and fanged out.” Carrigan rolled her eyes. “It’s just pretend. No one thinks the handfasting event is for real.”
My sister’s new husband obviously did. I grunted. A bear shifter and a half-wolf shifter wasn’t a common pairing, but Olivia and Jed were mated, in every sense of the word.
Even without participating in every town event, I knew about the handfasting thing. I pictured my massive, rough hand tied to smooth skin, a feminine palm in mine. Mine.
Ours, my bear grumbled in agreement, sending an image of the woman we wanted as our mate to the forefront of my mind. I ignored him. My bear didn’t understand we couldn't force a true mating.
I’d screwed it up with the only woman I wanted—needed. Convincing her to give me a second chance meant she’d have to talk to me first. I could seduce her, mark her, make her mine. I knew she was attracted to me. I noted her desire when we met. But if she didn’t choose it for herself, both of us would be miserable.
Mating was for life. Shifters and people might fall in and out of love, but a true mating bond, one aided by fate, was special. A shifter’s mark tethered them together on a whole different level. Rarely were fated mates pulled together, only to have one or more parties in the pairing abandon a goddess gifted mating bond.
Olivia and I had been the unfortunate front row witnesses to one such fucking disaster.
I would never do that to anyone else.
The tantalizing idea of a mate vanished. I turned away from my nieces’ pleading gazes, their whispers and plans reaching my ears as I pulled large loaves of crusty bread from the warming bin.
“I can hear you.”
“We know,” Carrigan said. “We don’t know why you won’t help us win.”
“Find someone else.” I put the loaves in the display basket and crossed my arms.
“That doesn’t look like the way Mom does it.”
“Then she should be here to do it herself.”
Carissa burst into giggles. “She’s busy.”
“They’re all over each other all the time at home, do they have to do it here, too?” Carrigan made a face. “Like, get a room.”
“They did,” Carissa pointed out. “Don’t go to the camper right now.”
“Ewww.”
“Ugh, I think I grossed myself out,” admitted Carissa. “But she’s happy, sooo…”
That life wasn’t meant for an asshole like me, but after everything they’d been through, Olivia and my nieces deserved their happy family.
The girls started up again. “It’s for a good cause?—”
“I’ll give you the money,” I cut them off. I could donate enough to cover what the twins would make if I actually participated. A timely investment in a local business made me a wealthy man. Not that I had any need of the money. It couldn’t give me the one thing I truly wanted.
