Page 20 of Wild Fated Mate
She still wasn’t getting it. I was dangerous to her. I wanted her, needed her, but there would never be a time when part of me wasn’t half wild animal. My frustration grew and I growled, my bear joining in.
Her eyes narrowed. “Protect me from what?”
Hadn’t she heard the noise I made? I wasn’t fully human.
“From me.” My jaw ached. “It can be dangerous to reveal ourselves to non-shifters.”
She frowned. “How is it possible to keep it secret when cameras are everywhere? What about when you’re at work? Or—oh my gosh.” She took a breath. “There’s a group of biologists doing research on the lower part of the mountain? What about stuff like that?”
Frustration and want and fear mixed to power my fangs as they punched through my gums. I grimaced around them. “It’s always a concern. And yes, I heard about the researchers looking into wolves on Wild Mountain.” I shook my head. There’d be time for those conversations later.
“I had to protect you from knowing I’m a bear shifter. But if you’re going to trust me, if we’re going to have a life together, I have to tell you everything. I need to mark you, make you mine. And this is how.”
She trembled on the bed between my legs, but I didn’t sense fear.
“Gavin.” She raised the hand tied to hers. “You could have hurt me with your claws, I felt how hard you were holding me, but I don’t have a single mark on me. You had your fingers inside me—” She paused at my deep inhale, her own eyes flaring wide at the memory.
I caught a hit of desire, a scent designed to both make my bear buck inside me and calm my soul at once.
“You made me come so hard I got jealous over a bunch of teenagers checking you out. I’m not afraid of you. Of any part of you. I’m only scared of—” She clamped her lips together, but it was in her eyes.
“Being hurt the way I hurt you, before.” I manned up and said the words.
She nodded.
I sank to my knees. “Sunshine, I vow to you and on our mate bond that I will always face my fears with you instead of trying to protect you from them.”
The superheated air was back, shining in the afternoon sun. I’d seen heat and ash, smokey fire dancing and raging around me. But I’d never seen fine, gold threads like this before.
“Do you see that?” Her voice was a whisper, as she traced the path of the strands winding their way around us.
“Yeah, love, I do.”
She smiled at me, soft and open, her heart in her eyes.
I couldn’t wait any more to touch her, to complete our connection.
I kissed her, more gently than before, her tender lips meeting mine with a sweet passion that turned the heat around us into an inferno.
My shoulders flexed against a tight band that wrapped around my back and across my biceps.
Serena pressed against me, closer than ever.
I shook with the power of my bear’s roar as our mate was bound to us.
But he wanted more. I wanted more.
Fate blessed our bond. And now I could take her the way our bodies demanded.
9
Serena
The roar that came from Gavin shook through me like thunder in a wild storm. Except there was no rain, and the only lightning was the crackle of energy between us.
Gavin was a bear. Shifter. Bear shifter. It was the craziest thing I’d ever heard, even as my brain just said, “Sounds about right.” As if there was more to the world than what I already knew, and part of me not only understood, but held open a space to accept the way a man’s arm turned into a bear paw, claws and all, and then turned back.
I looked into Gavin’s eyes. The flash of cinnamon-gold was back, his dark brows and lashes framing the truths that had been there all along.
