Chapter 5 Merrick
MERRICK
It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t my imagination. It wasn’t wishful thinking. King was here.
Suddenly, I didn’t care that my boss fucked up. If anything, I owed them a huge-ass Christmas present. King. My King was here, and he remembered me. He more than remembered me… he said I was his mate.
I knew about shifter mates, and growing up, I’d always been kind of jealous of them.
My father got married, had us, and then my dad left, just left out of the blue and never turned back.
After the divorce, he started a new life and got himself a whole shiny new family.
He never even showed up when my brother was on death’s door
That didn’t happen with shifters. They mated instead of married, and it was like this magical bond where they were just together forever because they wanted to be, not because of some legal contract like a marriage certificate.
At least, that was how it was always presented to me.
I was sure like all things, it was a bit of truth mixed with some exaggeration, but gods, it sounded wonderful.
And now, thinking about how my attraction to King had been so deep and so intense, so fast, and how it never died down…
I wondered if maybe I knew all along that he was mine and just didn’t piece it together.
The human experience and shifter experience were just so different, at least as far as love went.
It would make sense that I hadn’t picked up on it.
But also, by that logic, shouldn’t King have known?
Gods, this was overwhelming.
I needed air. To breathe, to think, to figure out what all this meant, because it felt like my world was tipped upside down and then thrown somewhere else to begin again.
Almost as if my one life ended and a new, better one was about to begin the second I felt his touch again.
But with him so close, my brain wasn’t braining, and I had to sort out what was happening before I did something foolish, like get caught banging him in the wine cellar.
Getting fired the day you met your person, the one you’d been waiting for all those years, would be a pretty shitty way to begin.
My plan was to go up the stairs, throw champagne at people, and then, as soon as it was possible, sneak away, bringing King with me.
Where? I didn’t know. His place? My place?
My vacation in the mountains? But one thing was for sure, I wasn’t leaving without him.
I did that once, and it was something I would always regret.
My plan had one major flaw—the wine cellar locked from the outside.
I didn’t have my phone. We weren’t allowed to have them with us, but it wouldn’t matter if I did.
Building the wine cellar had a big, fancy press-worthy event a few years ago, and part of making it a “perfect environment” for the wine, whatever that equated to, resulted in not having cell reception.
“Will someone come get us?” King asked, looking far more worried than I was.
Because honestly, there was something so comforting about being in this enclosed space with him. My emotions were all over the place. One minute ago, I couldn’t wait to get out of there, and now I wanted to rush into his arms and stay there.
“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” I said. “There’s plenty of wine upstairs, so maybe people won’t come down for more anytime soon.”
I went to lean back against the door. At least, that was the plan. Instead, I leaned forward and straightened as King’s arms wrapped around me, holding me close.
“I did look for you,” he said.
“That was my fault.” I brought my arms around him too, giving in to the feeling of comfort, safety, and warmth I felt. “I wasn’t technically old enough to be working at that bar back then.”
He froze.
“No, I wasn’t too young in that way. I was a grown-up. It’s just that particular bar had a 25-year-old minimum age for all employees. They wanted to keep college kids from taking jobs to give their friends free drinks. So I used a fake ID, and the information wasn’t quite accurate.”
“You’re not Merrick?”
“No. My first name was right, but my last name was spelled wrong. My birth date was wrong. My address was wrong. Even the state was wrong. I thought it was such a good idea at the time, and now I realize it thwarted my happiness all this time. I wasn’t trying to be deceptive.”
He kissed the top of my head. That tiny sign of affection was everything.
“I never thought you were,” he said. “But also, if I’d realized then that you were my mate at the time, I’d have come with you that night. I wouldn’t have let you go. So this is on me as much as it is on you.”
“Then how do you know now?” I asked. He’d sounded so sure when he told me, but if he wasn’t, I needed to brace myself for a broken heart.
“I just do.” Another kiss on my head. “When we first get our beasts, we don’t always pick up on things. We have to grow into them. Think of it like a second puberty.”
I shuddered at that. No one wanted to do puberty twice. Once was bad enough.
“But looking back, all the signs were there,” he continued. “You felt it too, right? Tell me you felt it too.”
“I more than felt it. I still do. Upstairs, today, I recognized you from the way you were leaning to one side, pretending to listen.”
“You paid attention to me tonight, even before I talked to you?”
“How could I not? Looking back, I knew then, too. Maybe if I had understood more about mates, then I’d have picked up on it and dragged you with me instead of leaving you.”
We were still in each other’s arms, talking about our lives since we last saw each other. When the door clicked open, I was a little sad. I wasn’t ready to break the magic that had been there in that wine cellar with us. I felt that doubly hard when my manager started going off on me.
“You were here all night instead of working? What, you just think you can pick up a hottie, sneak away, and it’ll be fine?”
They were such a fucking dick.
“And now you expect me to let you go on vacation?”
“Don’t worry about that,” King said.
“I haven’t even decided if I’m still going. Something came up.” I took King’s hand.
“Let me introduce myself. I’m Kingston Basson.”
My manager’s face changed to the perfect customer-service one they reserved for only the most important customers.
“Oh, Mr. Basson, I’m so sorry you got stuck here.
There’s still some time left for the party.
Why don’t you two go and have fun? And don’t worry about that vacation. It’s taken care of, okay?”
I looked at King, who gave a nod. I walked out with him, still holding his hand.
“I should probably work the rest of this shift for my coworkers,” I said. “But you’re gonna stay, right?”
“I’ve waited for you for years. Of course I can wait until this shift is over.”
“And when it is, will you tell me what just happened in there? My manager decided not to be an asshole to staff for the first time in their entire career.”
“Let’s just say my family business is doing pretty well, and this place kind of relies on us for a lot of their functions,” he said.
I stared at him. “So you’re saying I not only got a mate, but I got a fancy, rich one?”
“Say it again,” he whispered.
“Fancy, rich one?”
“No, say the part about the mate.”
“I got a mate?”
He squeezed my hand tight. “Those are the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”
I had to agree with him on that. They felt so right and filled with promise. King was my mate. How all of this would work out, I had no idea, but I didn’t need to because I knew it would.
King was mine and always had been. He was just mine from a distance before, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
I dropped his hand, not wanting to leave his side, but glad that it was only for a few hours.