Chapter 16 Perfect Timing
PERFECT TIMING
Mother doesn’t think that the raccoon
is part of her clan.
She’s wrong about that.
— gus
Max’s breath is hot on my ear as he murmurs, “How are you feeling, Killer?”
My eyes quirk open. Turning so I can look at him over my shoulder, I ask, “Are you still going to call me that?”
“After how just you wrecked me?” He chuckles, and I preen. Damn. Getting laid looks good on Max. It’s like the tension has fled if only for the moment… and, yeah. I did that. “You’re getting off lucky. Unless you’d rather I call you ‘mate’?”
I blink. Right. He’s my mate.
And that means I’m his.
“Killer is fine.”
“I thought so.” He laughs again, pulling me even closer. “But you are, you know.”
Considering my body is well-pleasured and I’d had his dick inside of me, that’s kind of what it means. “I know.”
“Not just my mate, either. My fated mate. The Luna finally told me.”
My breath catches in my throat. “She.. she did?”
“Some Alphas get her blessing. If you lead your pack well, she whispers our mate’s name in our ear. Last night… in the shower… she whispered yours to me.”
“Honey Morgan,” I murmur.
“For now. You’ll be Honey Lobo come the full moon.”
That’s right. I knew that. Both of those things, actually.
The Luna helps her Alphas find their mates because she wants her wolf shifters to mate and procreate and add to her worshippers.
However, because a pack Alpha taking a mate affects all the shifters under him, it’s not as simple as mating and marking.
There’s a whole Claiming Ceremony, and it only can take place on the night of the full moon.
“So you have until the full moon to change your mind?” I ask into the quiet bedroom.
“Look at me, Honey.”
It’s an order. Max has been very careful not to tell me what to do—and letting me off the hook when he does and I totally disobey—but there’s something about the way he says that.
It’s not an order.
It’s a plea.
I roll over. Instead of being the little spoon, I’m face to face with a predator—and there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be.
He wraps one arm around me. With his other hand, he tips my chin up so that I have nowhere to look at but his gleaming gold shifter eyes.
“I’m not changing my mind.” His eyes shadow over. “Unless you want to change yours.”
Me?
I welcomed him into my body last night. He’s been in my heart for a while now. He’s been in my head since the first time I caught his scent.
I don’t know who I was fooling. Fake it ‘til you mate it, right? Well, I fucking faked it, but from the moment Max growled ‘mine’... I was his.
I shake my head.
“Good. I’m a fair male. I do my best to lead, and I will lay down my life for my pack. There isn’t anything I won’t do for Moonburrow… but if you asked me to let you go? I don’t know if I can.”
I shrug, snuggling close to Max again. “That’s an easy enough solution. I just won’t ask you.”
“So you’ll just run—”
Ah, jeez. Who ever heard of an insecure predator? “No, you goof. I have a good life in
Max holds me close, quiet for so long that I think it finally got through to him that I’m not going anywhere, that it’s safe for him to finally let down his guard long enough that he can sleep.
And that’s when he says, “Does that mean I have an adopted opossum son now?”
I burst out laughing. “Well, I am Gus’s mom, aren’t I?”
“And my mate.”
Yes. And his mate.
I take Max’s hand in mine, twining our fingers together, ready to kiss his knuckle when something catches my attention.
“What’s this?”
It’s a small white scar on his first knuckle.
Shifters don’t scar. It’s one perk of our type of supe. We have rapid generation which means that—unless silver is involved—we can heal any injury except decapitation without a single clue left behind to show that we were hurt at all.
There are only two exceptions, and it’s really only one if you think about it.
Shifters have to choose to keep a mark on their body.
Usually that’s the mating mark that comes when a shifter either bites or claws their mate, claiming them as theirs.
Some shifters… and it’s almost always the predators…
they choose to leave a scar on their body
“Let’s call it a reminder.”
I’m just about to ask what that means when my mate stiffens.
“Someone’s coming,” Max announces.
And, yet, he makes no move to untangle his body from mine. Either he’s so confident that he can take our unexpected guest effortlessly while butt-naked or he is pleased to show off his new mate to whoever is so rudely interrupting our morning after.
“It’s not Gus. He’s still back at the cabin. Even if he was here, it couldn’t be him. He might be getting a little chunky lately from all of his treats, but he wouldn’t make the stairs creak.”
As though the person approaching heard my comment, they stomp the rest of the way up the stairs.
That should’ve been my first clue. My second should’ve been the way that Max’s nose wrinkles a little, muttering, “Trash,” under his breath.
I scent it, too. Obviously not as clearly as my wolf shifter mate does, but when my visitor comes wearing eau du dumpster, it’s kind of hard to miss.
Plus, there’s the fact that they’re comfortable walking onto my territory at three a.m. There’s only one soul in Moonburrow who would do that, and she’s pretty good at picking a lock.
Two seconds later, my suspicions are confirmed when Roxy Kane pokes her head in my bedroom while saying, “Honey, I was gonna leave this downstairs for you, but then I thought I hear something and—oh.” She blinks, a small smile curving her lips.
“Oh. Look at that. My raccoon said… yeah. I still wasn’t expecting you up here, handso— Max.
” Roxy is a lot of things, but she’s not the sort of shifter who will make a play for a mated male.
Childhood crushes are one thing. Finding me in bed with Max?
Yeah. She knows better than to see how fiercely protective a jealous opossum can be.
“At least, not until Honey stopped pretending to be things she wasn’t. I take it this is a good thing?”
Max growls softly. I smack his chest. “Yes,” I tell her simply. “He’s my mate.”
“Congrats. That actually saves us all some trouble.” Roxy lifts up her hand, showing a rolled-up piece of paper about twelve inches long. “Sheriff will probably want to see this.”
Uh-oh. “Roxy, what did you do?”
She shrugs. “I decided to be Nancy Drew.” She waggles the scroll-looking thing. “And I hit pay dirt.”
Max sits up, careful to keep as much of his skin covered with the blanket. Smart male. He doesn’t want to trigger his mate’s jealous side, either. “Let me see.”
She starts to cross the room.
I hiss, then cover my mouth with my hand.
Roxy rolls her eyes. “Take a chill pill, Hon I don’t want your predator.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Nah. It’s cool. You only just mated so you’ll be super jealous for a bit. I get it. But we still have a couple of murders in Moonburrow to take care of. Lucky for you, I think I figured it out.
“See, it was Abigail’s death that clued me in.
I liked her. Skittish but nice. So I decided to take a look into it myself.
Her office was on the same street as the apothecary.
She was going on secret dates with a wolf shifter.
I talked to a couple of pals I have”—pals?
Roxy has pals? And I shouldn’t say that out loud, right?
—“and they gave me a name. Turns out he’s been spending a lot of time near Witches ‘n’ Things, too.
He claimed he was just doing his job, but check this out. I think he’s full of it.”
Keeping enough distance between her and the bed, she starts to toss the paper to Max.
Starts to, then pauses. “You sure. You might not like what you see.”
“Is it Honey?” Max asks.
“What? No. It’s a dude. One of your dudes.”
“Riordan?”
“The cursed Beta? Your brother? If he ever lets himself off the chain, he won’t poison shifters in the dark, Sheriff. He’ll bulldoze the entire damn town.”
Hang on—
I look over at my mate. “Riordan is cursed?”
Max’s expression is instantly full of guilt. Huh. Looks like we both have secrets… “I can explain later. But you, Roxy… you can explain now. How do you know that?”
An impish shrug. “Let’s just say that I don’t only deal in oddities and antiques at my store.
I’m nosy. I like information. And when my sources tell me that the new witchy baker in town is on the chopping block, I’m going to get all the information I need to take them down.
” Her yellow eyes gleam in the darkness of my bedroom. “No one messes with Honey but me.”
I’m touched. “Thanks, Roxy.”
“Don’t mention it. And to make it easier, I’ll tell you what this is.
It’s an order form I found. Don’t ask me how.
Don’t ask me where. It doesn’t matter. What does is that it ties Talia Winters to one of your wolves when it comes to a mass order of wolfsbane, silver, and nightroot powder… plus a witch fee for unlimited spells.”
“Who is Talia Winters?”
“She’s a witch.” Duh. “She also owns the apothecary.”
And she’s been selling wolfsbane, powdered silver, and nightroot powder to a wolf shifter.
Roxy tosses the scroll. Max doesn’t open it. Not yet.
All he says is, “Whose the wolf, Roxy?”
“Leo Holloway.”
Max snarls, and I just blink in surprise.
Leo Holloway.
Leo, the wolf who was in the bakery when I accidentally gave away the Can’t Resist Cupcakes.
Leo, who works in law enforcement with Max and would’ve been at the pack meet where Declan brought my treats—and Max’s cupcake.
Leo, the glorified meter-maid who was having a discussion with a witch about Abigail’s death when Roxy pushed her way into the conversation.
A witch…
How much do I want to bet that that was Talia Winters?
If he had a witch working with him, that would explain the blow-back spell. That’s strong witch magic, and she’s sold her services—and the poison ingredients—to one of Max’s high-ranked wolves.
But why?