Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Mira woke to the faint sound of birds singing. For a moment, she didn’t open her eyes. She lay still, letting herself sink into the quiet hum of the house and the warmth of the male beside her.
She eased over to her side after a few moments and saw Leo on his back, one arm under the pillow, the other on his bare stomach. She watched his chest rise and fall as he breathed deeply in sleep, and her gryphon stirred in her chest. It was the strangest but coolest feeling in the world.
Being around Leo was making her feel things she’d never felt before.
And not just sexy feelings, although those were awesome. She was faintly feeling a wild part of herself, and she cherished the little pieces of the gryphon.
Leo sighed as he stirred, like he was aware she was watching him and decided to wake up to watch her too. He opened his eyes and yawned, stretching like a cat in the morning sunlight, the blanket slipping down his hip to reveal his dark boxer briefs.
“Morning, beautiful,” he said, rolling to his side to smile at her, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“I did. You?”
“Best sleep of my life because you were with me.” He rested a hand on the dip of her waist. “We can go grab breakfast at the diner in town if you’re hungry.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Twenty minutes later, they were in his truck, heading to a diner in Thorn Hollow, run by pack members.
The town was quaint: quiet streets lined with houses with manicured lawns, and several businesses, including a gas station, a deli that he said served the best sandwiches, and a clinic run by Doc Whalen, the pack’s healer.
The diner was near the center of town, a plain white building with picture windows and a bell over the door. He opened the door for her, and she stepped inside, the warm air heavily tinged with the scents of maple syrup and bacon.
“Morning, Leo,” a female said with a smile from behind the counter. “Who’s your friend?”
“Hi, Betsy, this is my mate, Mira. This is Betsy; she and her mate Frankie own the diner. Best pancakes on the planet.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Mira said.
“You too, hon. Sit anywhere. Coffee?”
“Yes, please,” Mira said, and Leo agreed. Leo greeted people, introducing her to pack members as they moved through the diner to sit at an empty booth. Betsy appeared with a carafe of coffee and mugs and handed menus to them.
After they both ordered the pancakes and bacon, they drank coffee and talked about the plan for the day. He was going to take her to the festival. It was the last day, and she needed to be part of the festivities and support her house.
When the plates came—stacked with pancakes and bacon—they fell into an easy conversation about the pack and what it was like to grow up as a shifter.
She told him about being nomadic with the psychics, and how chaotic it could be, never knowing what a town held for them or how long they might stay.
They didn’t always follow stars, but her dad’s vision about her future at the festival was enough for them to want to follow it.
“They’ll keep following it?”
“That was their plan,” she said. “I really don’t know what they’ll do, though. I did find my destiny here.”
While they talked, her gryphon pulsed faintly inside her like an echo. Every time their eyes met, she felt a surge of heat, a whisper of what it might be like to tumble into bed with him.
When they’d finished eating, he paid the bill and they walked outside. The sunshine brought plenty of heat with it, and she very much wanted to take a shower and put on fresh clothes.
They stopped at the security office, and she met the wolves who were going to drive along with them to the festival as an escort, and then return to accompany them back to the pack.
When they were on the way to the festival, Leo said, “I know we just met.”
“It feels longer, though.”
“Yeah, it does,” he said, glancing at her with a smile.
He took her hand and linked their fingers, resting it on his thigh.
“I want to say that you’re my mate and I want to be with you.
We’ve only known each other for a day, but your family are nomads and I get the feeling they’re going to want to take off.
I don’t want to put any pressure on you, but I want you to know that wherever you want to be, I’ll be with you.
If you want to stay in Thorn Hollow, I’d love that.
But if you want to be with your family and house, then I’ll leave Thorn Hollow and consider you and your family my pack. ”
She hummed in surprise. She knew they’d have to figure out the future soon enough, but she hadn’t expected him to be so sweet and gracious about it.
“Is it okay if I don’t know what I want to do yet?
I appreciate what you said so much; it means the world to me.
And it’s not because we don’t know each other that well, it’s just that I don’t know what the right choice is for us as a couple.
I don’t know if my family is going to stick around if I don’t say we’re coming with them, or if they’ll leave anyway. A lot of stuff seems up in the air.”
“Yeah, but that’s okay. Let’s just enjoy the day. I think things will fall into place and we’ll both know what the right move forward for us is.”
She didn’t have to figure things out on her own; she had Leo at her side. At the end of the day, they were going to start a family of their own. And maybe that was as part of a nomadic group of psychics who never settled anywhere for long, or maybe it was in Thorn Hollow.
But wherever it was, it only mattered that she and Leo were together.
Everything else was just minor details.
* * *
Leo and Mira pulled onto the grassy parking area at the festival grounds after waving goodbye to their escort, who didn’t follow them in.
When she got out of the truck, the scents of kettle corn and fried dough made her stomach growl, even though she’d just had breakfast. She definitely had a soft spot for fair food.
Her parents waved them over to where a group of chairs was set up under a shady tree behind the booth.
“Hi, honey,” her mom said, hurrying forward to wrap her in a quick hug. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m better after talking things out with Leo,” she said. She knew her mom wanted to know that she forgave them for the secrets all these years, but she wasn’t ready to let things go just yet.
“Good, I’m glad. Did you eat yet?”
“We had breakfast before we left Thorn Hollow. It’s the cutest town. Speaking of cute things, I wanted to talk to you, Dad, and the house really quickly.”
The group gathered, and Leo stood by her side, a warm comfort next to her.
“Alpha Adam texted Leo about a B&B, run by pack members, in the town that butts up against Thorn Hollow. There are plenty of rooms available. He suggested you could stay there for a while so we could visit. Since it’s the last night of the festival, I wasn’t sure if you were planning to stick around or follow Velastra, and I wanted to let you know there was an option. ”
Her dad’s brows rose. “Would you stay with Leo?”
“Yes,” Mira said.
He nodded. “Permanently?”
“We haven’t figured all the details out yet,” Leo said. “We just met yesterday, after all. So if you’d stick around for a while, we could all get to know each other better and then Mira and I would have time to make the right decision.”
“Then I think we should stay in the B&B,” her mom said with a smile. “I don’t want you rushing into such an important decision, and we could use a break from being on the road.”
“Hear! Hear!” Lark said.
With that settled, she and Leo got to work with the others, helping to restock the booth and greeting people who walked by.
It was surprisingly easy to fall into the rhythm of her family’s work with Leo at her side.
He talked easily with Nash, her dad, and Hollis, chatted up customers, and made even the simple act of carrying boxes look sexy.
She and Leo were midway through restocking a table with trinkets for sale when her dad called out, “Mira! Leo! There’s a problem with the van.”
Leo’s brows lifted in curiosity. She followed him behind the booth to the waiting vehicles, where her dad stood, frowning at the open driver’s door. “It won’t start. It was fine this morning, but now it just clicks.”
Leo leaned in, twisted the key, and listened, then popped the hood and moved to the front, propping it open.
He inspected the engine, scanning the wires and parts as if they were a map of a familiar place. “Sweetheart, would you hand me a wrench?”
She passed it to him, their fingers brushing.
“You couldn’t possibly be sexier than you are right now,” she whispered.
He looked over his shoulder at her with a salacious grin.
He worked for a while and eventually coaxed the old engine back to life. He shut the lid with a bang and nodded at her dad. “If it acts up again, I can take a closer look at the garage in Delta Park.”
“Thanks, Leo,” he said.
“Happy to help.”
She and Leo returned to the booth where they finished their tasks and then talked to customers who walked by.
They even took a stroll around the festival and had corndogs and funnel cakes for dinner.
At a booth, Leo found a necklace for sale that had a wolf charm hanging from a delicate silver chain.
When he paid for it, he put it on Mira’s neck and said, “This way you’ll always have a wolf close to you. ”
She pressed her fingers to the charm as she smiled up at him. “Thank you. You’re just the sweetest guy on the planet.”
“Only for you.”
By the time the last customer had trickled past, and she and Leo had helped to pack up the booth into the waiting vehicles, the security escort from the pack had returned to drive back with them.
Mira hugged her mom and then her dad as they said goodbye. “I’ll text you after we get checked into the B&B,” her mom said.
“Sounds good, I’ll come visit tomorrow,” Mira said.
“Keep my daughter safe,” her dad said, shaking Leo’s hand.
“Always,” Leo promised.
As they parted ways, the psychic house heading to Delta Park and her, Leo, and their escort heading to Thorn Hollow, Mira couldn’t help but feel the electric charge in the air between her and Leo.
Every bump in the road brought their legs into contact, each brush of their arms sparking low in her belly.
When they pulled up to his house, the quaint three-bedroom ranch looked practically magical in the moonlight, like a haven away from the hustle of the world.
He came around to her side and opened her door, offering her his hand as she stepped down.
The crickets were chirping in the trees, the rustle of the leaves in the summer breeze lending a rhythm to the night melody.
“It was a long day,” he said as he shut the door and looked down at her.
“A good one, though. I really loved working with you. And I know my family appreciated you helping out.”
“Plus, Hollis picked up my keys when I dropped them earlier and told me that the keychain belonged to my grandma, which is true.”
Mira had seen the keychain. It was a small piece of oval, polished wood that had a wolf carved into it.
“Did he tell you anything else about it?” Hollis was a psychometrist and could tell the history of an object by touching it.
“That it was older than I thought it was. It was her brother’s, and he’d carved it when she was a baby and had given it to her when she was old enough to drive.”
“That’s neat.”
“I saw some pretty freaking cool things today that I had no idea existed. Your family and the other psychics are amazing.”
“I think you’re pretty amazing, too.” The last words came out breathless as her heart kicked up when he closed the space between them. He pressed his lips against hers in a slow, steady kiss. Her fingers curled into his shirt and pulled him closer, tilting her head slightly to deepen the kiss.
Nothing was as good as kissing Leo.
Well, she bet some things were better. But for now, kissing him was her favorite thing.
Her sexy, sweet wolf.
When they finally parted, both breathing hard, she saw the flash of his wolf in his eyes, and her gryphon answered faintly in her head—a mix between an eagle cry and a lion roar.
He kept her hand in his as he led her to the porch and inside the house. As the door clicked shut, the world faded away, until it was only the two of them, connected by the heated promises simmering in his eyes.