She slid her hand into her pocket with a hint of a smile. “Well, if we’re being honest, I’m in no rush to go unpack boxes, either.”
“Good.” We got into my truck. “Burritos on the way?”
She nodded with a smile. “Sounds great.”
By the time we parked at the trailhead near Bell Rock, the twilight shadows were spreading out across the valley. I spent most of the drive on the phone with Adam from the Reno Pack, peppering him with questions. My head was buzzing with new information I couldn’t prove. Yet.
It sounded like my hunch about the anomaly being from Chandler’s side of the gene pool was probably right, and that meant questioning he and Madison more about their family history. I could wait a couple of days, though. Chandler was busy with newborn twins, and Madison had already told me she’d reached her fill of weirdness for the day.
She got out of the truck and stretched, eyeing the trail. “You’re sure about this? It’s getting dark. Should we try again tomorrow?”
“This is the best time to go. The temperature is cooler, and we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
I wouldn’t have any trouble seeing in the dark, but the full moon was right around the corner so there would be plenty of moonlight shining on us, too. Plus being out here, away from the lights of the city, I could relax a little, knowing we wouldn’t be spotted together. Being with me wasn’t going to add a target to her back.
“All right.” She walked over to the trailhead. “I guess that’ll give us some time for you to help me wrap my head around shifters being a real thing, and that you…are one.”
I chuckled. “You can say werewolf.” I took her hand, grateful she didn’t pull away. “I promise you won’t catch it.”
We started down the trail. “Is it like the movies?” she asked. “Like do you turn into a big wolf and bite people? Or is it like the old legends of drinking water from a werewolf’s paw print?”
“Wow. I haven’t heard that one in a while. But neither of those examples are right.” I glanced her way. “I do shift into a larger-than-normal-sized wolf during the full moon, but we never go near humans.” The trail angled up slightly, and I kept an eye on Madison. She had no trouble with the incline in the fading light. I cleared my throat and went on. “You already heard us talking about the shifter gene for werewolves and jaguar shifters usually being carried on the Y chromosome from father to son, so I was born a werewolf. For a human to become a werewolf, though, they’d have to be bitten while the werewolf is in his wolf form.”
She looked my way. “That’s why you were on the phone with Adam tonight. Chandler had a little girl today, which surprised all of you.”
“Well, yeah. The fact he had a girl at all and then that she’s also a jaguar shifter like her dad were both a big shock.” I shrugged, thinking out loud. “I expected to be delivering twin boys, and I thought they’d either both be werewolves or both be jaguars.” I squeezed her hand. “Finding one of each, and that one is a girl…is pretty rare.”
“Could she have taken after my brother even though he was bitten? He wasn’t born a shifter like you.”
I lifted our joined hands, kissing the back of hers. “Truth is, I don’t know for sure.” I glanced over at her. “I thought you were done with shifter weirdness for the day.”
She chuckled. “I’m also curious, so what can I say? It’s a catch twenty-two.”
I admired her more every second. “Up in the Reno Pack, Adam and his mate, Lana, were both born shifters. Lana’s mother was part of a breeding experiment from a biotech defense contractor called the Nero Organization. When Lana was born as a shifter, she proved their theory could work, then she passed the shifter gene on to her daughter.”
Madison stopped walking. “His mate?”
I blinked. Dammit. I’d been rambling, not thinking. “His wife.”
“But you said mate.” She looked up into my eyes. “Is that a werewolf thing? Because wolves, in general, have mates.”
There was no going back now. I wasn’t going to lie to her. Not anymore. “Yes, they do. One mate for life.”
She took a small step back. “Have you… Do you have one already?”
“No.” My heightened hearing made it impossible to miss the way her pulse was racing like a damned greyhound. Shit. “I mean, I didn’t.” Her eyes were like saucers now as the scales tipped to information overload. I cleared my throat and struggled to shrug it off. “I thought I’d never find her.”
That was true enough.
She swallowed and took another step away from me. “I…I can’t…”
A whoosh of nervous energy hit me like a solid roundhouse kick to the gut. Anxious sweat beaded on my forehead, and my pulse ratcheted up to match hers. What the fuck was happening to me? I reached for her, but she stumbled backward.
My wolf howled, vibrating through my spirit, calling to her. Our mate.
Her eyes widened. “Me? How is this possible?”
My jaw dropped. Had she heard my thoughts again? I tried to keep my voice low and even, but the panic inside was crushing me. It was getting harder to tell if it was hers or mine. “Talk to me, Madison. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I don’t, either,” she squeaked.
My breathing was shallow, again mirroring hers. And then I heard it.
Help me. Locked. Hurts. Dark.
Madison met my eyes. “Do you hear her, too?”
I nodded, scanning the horizon even though I was certain I hadn’t heard the voice with my ears.
She grabbed my hand. “We have to help her.”
“First, we need to get a grip.” I forced in a deep breath, then another. “Breathe with me.”
Her gaze locked on mine, and we anchored each other. Her heartbeat gradually slowed until it matched mine, and although the most we’d physically shared was kissing, I’d never been this intimate with anyone in my entire life. Just standing in the gathering darkness, alone in the valley under the watchful gaze of the Red Rocks, staring into her eyes, I felt more connected to her than I ever thought possible.
“So much for taking things slow,” she whispered. A tentative smile curved her lips. “I’m a million miles off the deep end with you.”
I pulled her into my arms, kissing the top of her head as I hummed the line from the song we’d sang together at karaoke. “So fucking far from the shallow now.”
Her laughter saved me. I didn’t have a clue what was happening with our shared connection, or the telepathic voice crying for help, but clinging to her in the twilight, there was a nugget of peace spreading through my chest.
Whatever the this was, we’d face it together. And for now, that was enough.
CHAPTER 12
Madison
I clung to Cole like a lifeline in a hurricane. Closing my eyes, I drank in his scent, grounding myself in this spot with him. Today I’d learned shifters existed, that my brother and my—I wasn’t sure what Cole was to me yet, but they were both shifters.
And I was…his mate? I closed my eyes again.