I popped up, paced, considered. Uncle Adam’s story was poignant, but I couldn’t deny the four examples of human/shifter relationships he’d mentioned. Even Rob, the leader, had been prepared to mate a human. If they all had done it, then Rand would be fine with it too.
Then I thought of my parents, the true issue. “Your wolf is driving you.”
He grinned. “That’s for sure. I… I’m hot for you. I won’t deny that. But I want more than that. You want love. Well, that’s easy. I love you, Red.”
There. That. All of a sudden, I was cold. His words, they were empty. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t say the words when you don’t mean them. Love isn’t some biological urge. Your wolf is controlling you. Will always do so. My parents, they… they hate each other. They live in this loveless, miserable marriage. I’ve heard that word tossed around when it means nothing. I won’t have that.”
“You won’t be miserable with me,” he replied.
I shook my head. “You don’t even know me. We’ve spent one night together. One night. I’m not going to sign up for a lifetime based on that. I’ve seen how unfortunate that scenario can turn out. I won’t be in a relationship every day when I will never know if it’s the wolf’s need for a mate or love that keeps us together.”
“I’ll always have a wolf’s need for you. You’ve seen it, it’s possessive and bossy. It’s desperate for you.”
He truly had no idea, which was proof that this wasn’t going to work. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t going to have a relationship with a shifter, one who was driven by his need to mate. Not by genuine connection. Not by love.
“Exactly. I can’t. I’m sorry but no. That’s just biology. That’s not love.”
I turned again, grabbed my shoes off the floor and carried them out of his bedroom. My purse was on the floor by the front door, and I grabbed it.
“Red!” Rand called, following.
I went outside, the sun warm, the sky a gorgeous blue.
“Red!” he cried again, stepping out onto the porch. Butt naked. “Don’t leave. I’ll just have to follow you.”
I stopped by my car, looked to him. “No, you won’t be following me. Your wolf will.”
12
RAND
Nash’s truck pulled up while I was still standing in the doorway, my dick waving in the wind.
I cursed and stepped back into the cabin and yanked on a pair of jeans and t-shirt. We had a job today—a chimney rebuild at one of the pack member’s houses. I’d told Nash yesterday to reschedule because I needed to get Natalie’s whole house rewired, but he’d refused.
“You’re gonna need to keep working if you’re going to help fund her fix-up project,” he’d told me. “Besides, I can’t do the chimney job alone.”
He was right, but fuck if I didn’t want to jog right past his truck and go after my mate. I wanted to follow—hell, I needed to follow, but Natalie didn’t want that.
“You look like shit,” Nash observed when I climbed in the cab. “Did you just wake up? Did you even eat?”
I shook my head. My brain was whirring and spinning in twelve different directions, and all of them were around Natalie. What the fuck had just happened? She’d known I was a shifter. For years. I couldn’t get my head around that. Humans didn’t know about shifters. My brother, Clint, had told me how he’d had to reveal what he was to Becky, and that had been a cluster fuck. Being the younger sibling, I was able to learn from Clint’s mistakes. I hadn’t even gotten to the point where I would have messed up telling Natalie the truth.
She already knew.
She’d known all along she was going to walk away while I’d been sinking hard and fast.
My wolf was pissed for letting her go. What was I supposed to say to her?
I had no fucking idea.
Nash put the truck back in park. “Go grab some beef sticks. I’m not gonna have you snarling at me because you’re hungry and haven’t marked your mate yet.”
I wanted to snarl at him right there. In fact, I would have loved a good wolf fight—the two of us throwing down in a tussle of fur and fangs until I got rid of some of this aggression. But when we were done, bloody and worn out, I’d still feel the same fucking way.
Natalie had left and nothing was going to fix that. Except going after her and getting her to see reason… somehow.
When I refused to move, he shook his head and got out, stomping into my open cabin and coming back with a handful of the giant meat-sticks we kept on hand for wolf snacks.
He dropped them in my lap, put the truck back in gear and started driving. “So? What’s the problem? I smell her all over you.”
“She knows about shifters.”
“Okaaay.” He drew out the last syllable as if to imply there was no problem.
“She says what I feel isn’t love. Then she basically shot out of here and told me not to follow.”
He steered around a turn, kept his eyes on the road.
“Well, humans are different,” he said, as if he knew this shit. He didn’t have a mate. He had no fucking clue. Still, he went on. “You should talk to your brother about it. Or to Becky. Human women don’t get the mate thing. Didn’t Becky refuse to marry Clint because she’d had a bad marriage? They don’t understand that bad matings don’t happen.”
“They also don’t understand that a true fated mating is special,” I reminded him. Lots of shifters never found their fated mate. They settled with someone before it was too late to have a family. Those pairings were like human marriages—took work and could fall apart. Domestic abuse was rare, but when it happened in shifter couples, it was made even worse by the biological urge to stay with a fated mate. A female wolf might leave, but the male wolf would be compelled to follow his mate, even if she wanted to be free of him. Or so I’d heard. Again, it was rare.
“Maybe you can get her to see what the others have. I mean, look at Audrey and Boyd. Clint and Becky. The others. You’ve got good examples of human/shifter mates that are fucking nauseating to watch.”
“Yeah, they would be good, if she saw reason. She’s not thinking clearly. Plus, she mentioned her parents’ bad marriage. From what she told me of them, they’re a piece of work. Said she doesn’t want a loveless pairing.” I rubbed my forehead. “She thinks what we have isn’t love.”
He turned and looked at me before back on the road. “Well, by their definition it isn’t, I guess. I know you knew her when you were kids, but you only really met the other day. You only found out she was your mate that night. That’s why you should go talk to Becky. Or any of the other women. Figure out what humans need to fall in love.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple. She doesn’t think I love her. How do I prove to her my feelings are real besides all the shit I’m already doing? I mean, if I get any more possessive and protective, she’ll be tied to my bed.”
I slumped in the seat as the truck bumped along the dirt road. Fuck. This was way harder than I’d anticipated, and no matter how much my wolf—and my dick—wanted her permanently in my bed, that wasn’t the way to go. I thought I’d been so lucky to find my mate at a good age for mating and pups. I didn’t realize finding her wasn’t the only hurdle. Or the smallest.