Chapter 26 #3
And he’s right. I know he’s right. None of that would’ve happened if I could’ve just sat tight and waited for Jane, but instead I had to get drunk and go on an investigation by myself. Duncan and I never would’ve ended up in the ocean.
“I’m glad you were there,” I say finally. “Even if we almost died.” I twist my hands in my lap uncomfortably. If he hadn’t saved me, would I have looked at him twice?
“Me, too,” he says, and looks at me softly, so softly that I have to remind myself that I have no idea if I’m allowed to kiss him or not. “Don’t say you’re sorry,” he warns.
“I’m not,” I say. I’m surprised to find it’s true. I’m sorry we almost drowned. I’m not sorry that it was the catalyst for our relationship.
Silence hangs between us, thick as smoke. I chew on my questions, then find one I like the taste of. “So what exactly is a fated mate?”
“Oh.” He straightens his spine, looks surprised.
“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t know. I mean, not that it isn’t obvious, but it’s—” He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Let me start over. It’s a trait that’s unique to a few types of shifters.
The ones I’m aware of are wolves and selkies, but there might be others, I’m not sure.
Anyway, it’s… I guess you could say it’s sort of like a sixth sense.
We can identify a really compatible match immediately upon meeting.
It’s mostly our sense of smell, I guess, but there are, um, magical factors, too, I guess.
I don’t really know. This isn’t something I ever expected to deal with,” he explains, face flushing.
“It’s relatively rare. Like five percent of our population meets their fated mate. ”
For some reason, that makes me feel really warm underneath my bandages. “So what does that mean?”
“Um.” A pause. Duncan scratches his cheek, then sighs.
“I guess we should start with what it doesn’t?
It doesn’t mean that you have to be with me.
You can walk away of your own free will at any point in our relationship and I won’t follow.
There’s not like, any magic binding us together or anything.
Don’t believe the romance novels.” He laughs nervously.
I try not to let my disappointment show.
Being bound together by magic would be both metal and romantic as fuck.
“Well,” he continues, “I guess there might be. But it’s not like—we aren’t stuck together.
I-I can tell that you’re my mate and I, um, really, really want to make you happy and like, protect you, and make you smell like me and stuff.
But it doesn’t mean that things will be perfect or that we’ll be together forever necessarily.
I mean, most mated pairs do stay together, but—”
I roll my eyes. “I can leave if I want to. Got it.”
“Right, sorry. It just means we’re really, really compatible on a lot of different levels.”
While I mull this over, he taps a nervous pattern on his knee. Eventually, I say, “Why would I not want that?”
This seems to startle him. “Because of, like, consent? And power imbalances? Um, historically, a lot of people thought that if you were someone’s fated mate, you had to be with them, and that’s not true.
I mean, most people want to be together, that’s why you hear about marriages imploding and why everyone thinks we’re these crazy Casanovas.
But not everybody wants to be with a wolf. ”
“OK,” I say, taking my time with my words. “But I like being in a relationship and I like you. So why wouldn’t I be OK with this?”
“Because,” he groans. “It’s not like you chose me.”
“But I did,” I argue. “I thought you were kind of weird at first, but I don’t know, you grew on me.
You’re, like, secretly funny and dependable and worried about things that nobody else worries about, like whether or not I can consent to being your fucking fated mate.
I told you I wanted a relationship, right? And I chose you.”
I expect him to perk up, but he just looks unbearably sad.
“It’s just… It’s a big deal. And wolves are weird.
I don’t know how to prepare you for this.
I mean, my instincts are dialed all the way up around you.
” He looks down at the floor. “I put you in a pile of dirty laundry for a reason,” he admits.
I smirk. “I kinda figured.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t ask first.”
“I’m injured, you want me to smell like you, I don’t mind, what’s the problem?” I sigh. “Look, we can negotiate some stuff. You can tell me when you want to do something you think is weird and I’ll tell you how I feel about it, OK? It’s just like everything else in a relationship.”
He looks stricken. “The full moon makes me clingy.”
“OK, well, I like clingy.”
His gaze darkens. “What about possessive?”
Heat flares in my lower belly. I know I shouldn’t like that. But I can’t help it. “We can talk about it like normal people if it becomes a problem, right?”
“Yeah,” he says, looking away, cheeks reddening. “We can.”
I realize then that maybe this isn’t about me.
Maybe he’s scared. For a flash, I wonder if I’m about to be rejected by my fated mate and I feel sick.
“We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.
We don’t even have to date. I can just… go,” I say, even though the words make me feel defeated, like I’m being sucked into a tidal wave against my will.
He snaps to attention. “What? No, no. That’s—Wait, is that what you want?”
“I’m asking what you want,” I say, maybe a little too sharply.
“You’re what I want,” he says. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. I’m just scared I’ll fuck it up somehow.”
“OK,” I say. “OK, well, we could just take it slow. One day at a time.” This is the opposite of how my relationships usually go, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, it’s probably good, I tell the rebellious anxiety in my gut.
He groans. “I don’t want to take things slow. I want to make you mine and then do it all over again just in case.”
I will be replaying those words in my head later, when I’m alone in my room with no one to know exactly how much that sentence affects me. “You can’t just say stuff like that,” I mumble, grateful that I wore jeans instead of my traitorous sweatpants.
“You don’t even know what that means,” he groans.
“I’m pretty sure it means you’re gonna fuck me through the mattress and be really gross about it.” I waggle my eyebrows.
He groans. “You’re not supposed to be into this.”
“You’re telling me you found your fated mate and you’re surprised he likes you?”
“I—Fine, you’re right.” His hand lands on my shin again. He looks away. “I have to ask. Did you dump me?”
The bottom drops out of my stomach. “I—Maybe.” At his expression, I add, “I’m sorry.”
He sighs. “Do you want to be broken up?”
I shake my head. “No. That was… stupid. I’m really sorry. I should’ve let you finish.”
“OK.” He nods. “I’m not gonna leave you and I’m definitely not going to cheat on you. Um, it would be really, really hard for me to do that, just so you know.”
Something nasty twists in my stomach. “Wait a minute. Am I the only one with free will? Are you stuck with me?”
“What?” He stops tracing circles on my shin. “No, no, that’s not how this works. It’s just… It would be harder for me to leave, I guess. Instincts and all that.”
I don’t like this. “So if I were a total piece of shit, you’d have trouble leaving me?”
“I mean, that’s statistically really unlikely,” he begins.
“But I’d want you to leave me—”
“I could leave. I wouldn’t tolerate abuse—”
“But you just said—”
“Please stop worrying,” he insists, reaching to squeeze my ankle. “Look, we can talk about this later. You don’t have to make any decisions right now. Just… let me help you, OK?”
I don’t want him to help me. I want him to lay here with me until my head stops pounding. “Just… Just lie with me a minute, will you?”
Surprise shoots across his face like fireworks, but he’s quick to comply, squeezing between me and the wall, careful not to bump my ribs.
“I missed you,” I say, relishing the press of his body against mine, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his arm winds around me. “I’m really sorry.”
Burying his face in my shoulder, he says, “I don’t want you to be sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything from the start.”
“It’s OK.” His hair is still sweaty, but I don’t mind the way he burrows into me, even if it pulls on my stitches. “I’m glad you told me.”
I fall asleep like that, and when I wake, he’s right there beside me, breathing deep and even, one leg hooked over mine. I trace my fingers over the fading scar on his neck and fall back asleep.
I dream of red eyes and endless tunnels.