Chapter 7
Erick
“Maybe if all her overbearing brothers got out of here, she’d be honest with me,” Sly projects to the room.
“Stop doing that telepathic shit in front of me!” Kylian pushes out of my lap, a position that felt too natural to hold her in. My bear grumbles but I remain calm and watch her closely.
Kade narrows his eyes and barks telepathically, “Go find something to do far away from here, boys,” following up verbally with, “I’m going to see what’s keeping Karter.”
We wait until the room is clear and then Sly lays some medical jargon on Kylian that seems to appease my mate.
Yes, she is definitely mine. I feel it in every fiber of my being now—the simple act of hurting herself calling on my protective instincts.
But as a shifter, she should also know that I am hers.
Without her preternatural instinct, I might as well be fated to a human like Kade and Karter. Or Wiley and Cricket.
“Push out your mating pheromones, Erick. I have a theory,” Sly slips to me mid-conversation with Kylian.
“How are you feeling at this moment?” I ask while giving my bear permission to do his thing.
The stink pushes Sly back, causing him to rise to his feet and walk out the front door without a word.
Kylian doesn’t notice his exit. Her attention is on my eyes which no doubt glow a rich amber hue as my bear rushes forward.
Perspiration blooms on her chest and quickly runs in rivulets between the swells of her breasts. I try not to think about licking every drop as I make my way down her body.
“Are you okay?” I ask while catching her mid swoon and pulling her back into my arms.
“Her bear is reacting to the mating bond, which is exacerbated by your pheromones. It’s only going to get worse the more time you spend together. If she doesn’t shift, her bear will tear her apart to get to you,” Sly projects.
“How do we make her shift?” I ask.
“Not we, brother. You. Her mate. I know of a couple ways but you’re not going to like them.”
“What are they?”
He sighs. “Put somebody she loves in danger. Put her in a life-or-death situation. Or hold her down and fuck the bear out of her.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I growl. “I’m not raping my mate nor am I putting her life in danger.”
“She might shift from a normal orgasm but then again, she might not. I guess it depends on how often she masturbates and if her bear is used to getting off.”
“Stop talking about getting my mate off!” My bear growls louder and I’m on the verge of stomping out of this cabin and tearing his throat out.
“Calm down, Bossman.”
Kylian curls into a ball, moaning in pain.
“What can I do?” A desperate need to take away her pain only intensifies my agitation, which in turn seems to exasperate her distress.
“I don’t know.” She moans. “It hurts.”
Fighting every instinct I have to hold her tighter, I push her to the opposite corner of the couch and stand, putting as much space as I can between us in the small living room.
“I need time. It can’t be like this. I don’t want to force her to pick me.”
“Her bear has already picked you,” Sly states definitively.
“She doesn’t know that and you’re not telling her!” I snap.
He doesn’t respond.
After Kylian gives me her phone number, I do the hardest thing I’ve had to do in a long time—I walk away.
Outside, Sly rises slowly from his chair. “Are we good?”
I nod. “Take care of her but don’t tell her or Kade what’s going on. Tomorrow I’ll take her on a date but tonight I’ll give her time to get to know me over the phone. It’s the least I can do.”
“You’re a good man, Erick.”
“Someday you’re going to tell me how you know all this random shifter shit about mating. If I remember correctly, you had specific advice for Cricket too.”
He shakes his head. “There are some conversations that never need to be had.”
I jog the distance between the cabin and the house, darting around trees illuminated by the near full moon overhead.
Passing through a tight cluster, I catch a scent on some bark, causing my feet to stumble over themselves and pull a U-turn.
I breathe in deeply, noting a male shifter, mature bear but not one of the Barrington’s.
I thought they were the only bear shifters living in Fortune Falls but maybe I was mistaken.
Walking the rest of the way, I find Kade sitting on his porch with Dinah’s head on his lap, her eyes closed with a heavy blanket thrown over them. He lifts his eyebrows in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“No bullshit. Do you trust me?”
He looks off into the trees for three agonizingly long seconds and then looks me in the eye. “With my life and everything I love.”
“Good. I’ve got a plan that requires leaving her tonight but I need you to give her space to make her own decisions.”
“The boys and I will stay out of it unless she pulls us in.”
“That’s fair.” I turn toward my bike.
“Hey.” Kade rubs his hand down his face and sighs. “How are you? She might be my sister, but you’re my pack. My chosen family. Don’t think I don’t care about how stumbling upon your fated mate is affecting you. I know when I found Dinah, part of me freaked out.”
“Right now, the only thing I'm freaking out about is giving her a chance to get to know me. While I don't want her rejecting me, I also don't want her regretting me. She needs to have a choice in this and I don't want to take that from her.”
“She’s lucky it’s you.”
“You don’t know everything there is to know about me, Kade.”
“I know everything I need to know, Erick.
Kylian is a good girl who hasn't had the easiest time with six asshole brothers, two absentee parents, and a community of shifters—some of whom have been bullies—but she's made it work.
She took care of us when we couldn't take care of ourselves and has put off living her life longer than she should've had to. She deserves a man like you.”
“Thank you for being cool about this. I don’t know what I would’ve done otherwise.”
He nods. “Not something you have to worry about, brother. See you soon.”
My bear bitches at me the entire way home, grumbling louder with each mile I put between me and our mate.
I don’t know if Sly is right but his theory makes as much sense as anything else I can come up with.
Her symptoms mimic what most shifters experience the first time they shift in their teenage years.
Fever, muscle spasms, nausea, headaches.
I wonder if she’s experienced it before?
If anything else has caused her bear to rise to the surface—unable to break free?
It wasn’t like that for me. I’m part of the 1%.
The mythos. An anomaly of the shifter world.
The cursed Farnon—hunted and thought to be exterminated.
I survived when my father, mother, and twin brother did not.
Despite the odds, I lived and have held my secret close to my heart ever since.
I wasn’t sure the Fates would ever gift me a mate and I’m even less sure if my cubs will be born Farnon.
The chances they will be with a shifter mate increase, I assume but don’t know for sure.
It’s not like I have anybody I can talk to about this shit.
That’s something we’ll have to discuss before I embed my mating serum into Kylian, or allow her to do the same to me.
What a fucking mess.
By the time I pull into my garage, I’m doubting everything about today and my plan for tomorrow.
There’s no move forward that doesn’t damn Kylian in some way.
If she were purely human, she could reject me and live her life unaffected.
But she’s not and we’ve triggered the mating bond, which means she either has to mark me to complete the bond or die trying. Once she does, she’s mated to a Farnon.
Fucked no matter what.
She thought she was an outcast as the only shifter to never shift in a community of shifters?
Try birthing a bear cub on Day One.
My mother had to go into hiding with us.
Our father visited every few months to bring us supplies but otherwise kept his distance.
My brother and I shifted in our third year and our father promised we could live like a human family once we were old enough to defend ourselves.
I was five before I understood that our old pack believed he killed his mate and offspring as his Alpha ordered him to do.
It was our sixth birthday when our uncle, his brother, followed him to our hiding spot to complete the task my father never had the heart to do.
Tossing my wallet and cell phone onto the counter, I strip off my leather vest and grab a beer from my fridge.
The coward in me wants to ghost this entire fucked situation. Pack up my shit tonight, leave Kade a note at the shop, turn off my cell phone, and head south for the winter like a punk.
But it’s too late for that. Maybe everything would go back to normal for Kylian with a little space from me but maybe it wouldn’t. She sounds bitter about never shifting and maybe this is a gift I can give her.
My phone beeps with a text.
Kylian: Did you make it home safely?
Me: I did, beautiful. How about you? Did you get something to eat? Did Sly put stitches in your head?
Kylian: I did and no. He patched me up with steri strips. I feel a lot better now, by the way. Do you want to tell me why you left?
Me: Give me fifteen minutes to get settled and I’ll call you.
Kylian: I’ll be waiting.
Walking out of the shower with a towel tied around my waist, I grab a bottle of Black Label and my phone and crawl into bed.
The human side of me wants to get absolutely numb to the swirl of emotions and random thoughts fucking up my head and heart.
I dial Kylian and set my phone to the speaker, unscrewing the top of the bottle.
One swig, two rings, and she sends me to voicemail.
What the fuck?
My phone rings, but this time it’s a video call. Setting the bottle aside, I accept and find my mate laying in her bed wearing a tight tank top stretched across her full breasts, a bedside lamp illuminating the side of her beautiful face.
Kylian smiles. “I hope this is okay. I wanted to see your face.”
I smile back, my bear settling down with this minor concession. “It’s more than okay, babygirl.”
“It’s not like me to go to bed with somebody the same day we meet.” She blushes as she flirts, and it’s got to be the sexiest, most fucking adorable thing I’ve ever seen.
“Have you always been a good girl?”
“I haven’t really had a chance to be bad.”
“Do you want to be?” Damn, I didn’t think we’d spend the night sexting or having phone sex but we’re steering quickly in that direction. Is the mating bond bringing this out in her or is it me?
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to be anybody other than who I am.”
“Why is that? As far as I can tell you’re an amazing woman.”
Grinning, she looks away from the camera. “I can be a brat.”
“Oh yeah? What kind of brat?” My mind goes to filthy places I don’t think she’s ready for.
“Are there different kinds?” The confusion on her face confirms it. She has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Absolutely. There are spoiled brats who cause chaos for sport, rebellious brats who challenge the status quo, and playful brats who tease and torment for attention.”
I’ve always been partial to the playful ones. Tease and torment me all you want, babygirl. Once I get you underneath me, you’ll beg me for mercy.
I can’t say that to her tonight but someday I will.
Fates, the idea alone is enough to cause my cock to stir.
But tonight isn’t about chemistry, it’s about getting to know each other, so I need to get my fucking mind out of the gutter.
If we truly are fated, as all signs point to, we’ll have a hard time keeping our hands off of each other tomorrow.
“I guess I’ve been all of them,” she continues.
“I don’t see you causing chaos for sport but I absolutely see you challenging the status quo. Considering you’re the only female in a house of males, I don’t doubt you occasionally need to act out to get attention.”
Nodding, she giggles. “The terrorists do grab a lot of it—good and bad.”
“I don’t doubt it. You’re in college, right?” It’s time to steer this conversation into safer territory.
“I started in the summer. Mostly it’s online, but I go in twice a week for labs and group projects. It’s only my first year, so it’s general education stuff. Did you go to college?”
“No. Most of my life they homeschooled me, and then I went into the military.”
“Were you raised in a closed community like Fortune Falls?”
I throw one arm behind my head, settling back against the headboard and trying to appear unaffected. I’ve told nobody this, not even my pack. “I grew up in the foster system.”
“With humans?” she gasps.
“Yeah.”
“Sweet Fates. That must’ve been hard to navigate as a teenage shifter. Did you know any other shifters?”
My eyes move across the room to the shadowbox Sierra company gave me when I separated from the Army, a buried memory bubbling to the surface. “Even though I knew I was a shifter, I didn’t meet my first shifter until I was sixteen.”
“How did you meet them?” She lowers her eyes when I bring mine back to the screen. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”
“I have no secrets from you, babygirl.” At least I won’t once all it’s said and done.
I adjust my position on the bed and she does the same, rolling to her side and leaning her phone against something on her nightstand. Her brown curls fall over her shoulder, caressing the top of her chest. Soft light forms a halo behind her head, marking her as my beautiful fated angel.
I mimic her position, the two of us lying on our sides to stare at each other.
“We got a coupon in the mail at the group home for a free week at a boxing gym. I went to check it out and promptly got my ass jumped by four guys I pissed off while showing off my shifter strength. Luckily, there was another shifter there who watched the whole thing go down. He stepped in and broke up the fight with words, his authority unquestioned by the twenty-year-old humans. He was SpecOps Sierra and home on leave for a couple weeks. Next thing I know Colonel Packard came to visit me, recruited me on sight, and pulled me out of the system.”
“How could he do that at sixteen years old?”
“He had me legally emancipated and made me property of the US Army under his command.”
“Wow. I think you’ve told me more about your unit commander than Kade and Kash ever have.”
“I’ve had nobody but them to talk to about the Army, so it never dawned on me how many secrets we keep.”
“Even from other shifters? Not that I’m a shifter, but you know what I mean.”
“You are a shifter, Kylian. Your bear is in there, and she’s begging to come out.”