Ren held her through it all, stroking her hair after the crisis had abated, raining little kisses down on her as he cuddled her close. She felt so warm and protected. So…loved.
Incredibly. Wonderfully. Amazingly. Loved.
Chapter Sixteen
Time ceased to have meaning in the hours that followed. They would rise to eat, get cleaned up and then make love again. They made love in the shower, in the giant bathtub that easily fit them both. They made love in every room in Ren’s swanky house. Food appeared on the doorstep every few hours during the day, apparently delivered by some kind soul on the island who was thinking more clearly than they were.
Eating dinner the second day at Ren’s house, they sat at the dining room table, which had a gorgeous view out the front of the house, toward the ocean. Katrina still ate relatively little compared to Ren, and it still amazed her how much he could eat.
“I suppose that has something to do with your ability to shape-change?” She pointed toward his heaping plate of food as he looked up at her, a question in those startling green eyes.
“Shift. Shapeshift,” he corrected her. “We call ourselves shapeshifters, or just shifters for short. And yeah, we need a lot of energy to fuel our shifts, so we eat more than regular folk.”
“So, is everyone on the cast a shifter, then?” she asked, lingering over a breadstick. She’d finished eating already, but of course, Ren was still shoveling it in. She watched him indulgently.
“Not everyone,” he told her, pausing to send her a grin. “Just most of us.”
“Does that include the director?”
“Sonia?” Ren seemed surprised by the question. “No, she’s not a shifter, but there is something different about her. She’s allied with Mark, and by extension with our entire Clan. He’s the one who asked me to do the movie with her, to help get her career off the ground.”
“Why would Mark want to help an up-and-coming film director?” Katrina wondered aloud. “I don’t recall ever hearing that Pepard Industries was that involved with Hollywood.”
“It’s not, though my presence in the Clan has led a lot of others astray—as Mark would jokingly say—into acting, in recent years. Now that Nick has found his mate in Sully, there’s even more connections with Tinseltown in the Clan, so the influence is even stronger. I don’t know all of Mark’s reasons, but helping Sonia gain power in the human world is something he asked me to help with, and I agreed. I’d do just about anything for Mark. He’s my Alpha. The leader of our Clan. We all follow his lead, and he takes care of our interests.”
“He’s got even more responsibility than I thought,” Katrina observed.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Ren agreed. “Our kind have been in decline for the past couple of centuries. Every person on this island has been touched by violence and has lost loved ones to the drug wars and the conquest of our ancestral lands. This island is a place to make our stand, to heal and rebuild our numbers. Mark devised this plan, and it’s been working well for all intents and purposes, but we still have a long way to go.”
“That’s terrible,” she commiserated. “But I’m glad there’s hope.”
“There is,” he agreed, putting aside his fork and getting up from the table to put the dirty dishes in the sink. “Mark has done an amazing job at amassing both fortune and power. He jokes that I took care of the fame part for him, though he’s pretty well known on his own. Of course, my fame will probably come back to bite me in the end.”
He rinsed the plates and put them in the dishwasher before turning to take her into his arms. Katrina had followed him to the kitchen with the rest of the items from the table to put away for later. He held her loosely, gazing down into her eyes.
“What do you mean about your fame biting you in the end?” she asked, reaching up to twine her fingers together behind his neck. She fit so perfectly against him, it was still a bit shocking.
“Well, we shifters have a different sort of metabolism than regular folk. We have all this energy that we need to shift, but it has other effects on us, as well. For one thing, we don’t age like non-magical people. Shifters can live a few centuries. Most of that time is spent in peak physical condition. What humans call the prime of life. For us, that lasts most of our days.”
“You’re not immortal, though, right?” The thought floored her.
Ren shook his head. “No. Not immortal. We don’t really get sick, though. Not like humans. We’re not susceptible to most germs that make regular folk ill, and we generally don’t have genetic faults. Shifting heals us of many things, and it’s probably why we don’t get chronic illnesses like other people. The thing is, I’m going to have to retire from acting at some point, but my face is so well known, that I’ll have to go into hiding or maybe fake my own death or something. I haven’t figured out exactly what I’ll do when I finally retire, but it’ll mean going into virtual exile for a good long while. Luckily, I don’t think I’ll mind that too much, living here. This is going to be my retirement home. At least for a few decades, until people forget about me.”
The thought boggled her mind. If what Ren said was accurate, he was going to live a very long time, indeed. He’d retire and still have the better portion of his life ahead of him, while still being fit, healthy and able to enjoy all the activities he wanted—except going out in public, where he might be recognized. That had to be constraining.
“And…” He took a deep breath before he went on. “I want you to be here, with me, by my side. My mate for as long as we live.”
Was he serious? Was he asking her to…what? Live with him? Marry him? Her heart sank a bit after the initial joy. In light of what he’d just revealed, she had questions.
“Ren, you just told me you’ll live a lot longer than I will. How can that work? I don’t want to out-age you.”
“It doesn’t work that way for true mates. When we’re together, you’ll partake of my inner magic, and it will sustain you. It will sustain us, together, for as long as the Goddess gives us.” He lowered his head and kissed her gently. “I personally want a good century or two just to make love with you. And, if the Goddess blesses us, I want us to have children.”
Katrina’s heart filled near to bursting as hope bloomed again. Being a wife and mother might not be a fashionable goal among Hollywood types, but Katrina had always been a bit more traditional than most. She wanted children, but mostly, she wanted a loving husband who would be loyal and true. If everything Ren had said was real, her life had just changed irrevocably for the better.
“I want that, too,” she admitted, her voice shaking and tears in her eyes. “I want it all. Marriage. Children. Happiness.”
“Together,” Ren promised her, his eyes shining with joy and hope. “We can have that together, if you will consent to join your life to mine and be my mate.”
Katrina had a scary thought. “Will your people accept me? I’m not…like you.”
“They already love you,” Ren told her. “Isn’t that obvious? They came to the house to welcome your arrival. They don’t do that for just anyone. They all know you’re special to me, and therefore, you are special to them. That’s what being Clanmates is all about. We are family.”