16. Cookie dough solves all problems #3
“Know? Nah. But suspected it? Pretty much.” She reaches out, patting my knee. “You poor thing.”
I ignore that. After all these months, I’ve gotten a handle on Roxy’s attitudes. Her defense mechanisms and how she tries to cheer up a friend. Her smart ass remarks aren’t meant to offend Riordan—at least, not completely—but to show to me that she’s on my side.
I glance down at my actual side. “Hey, Gus. Did you know, too?”
He makes an excited sound as he bumps my thigh with his snout.
Honey winces. “Yeah. He knew. That’s why he put a pause on his ‘duty’, taking a break from being Deputy Gus so that the two of you could finally see what was right in front of you.”
Gus chitters with pride.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Since when do opossums play matchmaker?”
Roxy smirks at my bewildered tone. “Have you met Gus?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
Yeah. Fair enough.
Still, I point my empty spoon between the two shifters. “Someone could’ve told me.” I exhale roughly. “Riordan should’ve told me. I just… I don’t know why he didn’t.”
Honey reaches over and squeezes my arm. “He should’ve told you.
He absolutely should have. But there’s something I think you’re missing, Penelope.
You’re not a shifter. And, look,” she says hurriedly when I start to ask why that matters, “I’m not saying that to be mean.
But shifters… we’re wired differently. When we’re sure our mates will reject us, sometimes we don’t put ourselves out there so we don’t get hurt. That’s what happened to me.”
Wait—
“What?”
She nods. “I also knew Max was my mate before he knew I was his. Do you think I told him? No! I was so sure he wouldn’t want a prey shifter for a mate, I hid my scent so that he had no clue I was his.”
That’s nuts. Anyone seeing Honey and Max together knows that she’s the perfect mate for him. “But then you realized that you were meant to be together, got over your insecurities, and told him?”
Roxy snickers. “Hardly. She forgot she was wearing a scent reducer charm, hopped in the shower, and when it washed off, Max got a full blast of her scent and knew she was his. Of course, they were mated that same night because Honey and the sheriff are meant to be together, but she never got the nerve to open up to him before he figured it out for himself.”
Honey glares at Roxy. “What about you? Did you tell Ash that you knew you were fated mates before he came back to life and caught your scent?”
Roxy shakes her head royally. “Sorry, but there isn’t exactly a handbook for telling a dead guy that you think he’s your fated mate. He found out when it counted—”
“And then you formed a bond with him that same night.”
This time, Roxy shrugs. “When you know, you know.” She grabs another spoonful of cookie dough and drops it on her tongue. She chews, swallows, and looks at me. “What about you, Pen? When you found out that Riordan is your mate, did you want to jump his bones?”
Yes.
I don’t say that. I don’t have to. Both of them—all three of them—know that, if I hadn’t been so hurt to think that he hid it from me on purpose, I might’ve given in to the attraction I’ve felt for Riordan for way longer than I want to admit.
Instead, I scowl. “So nobody in Moonburrow knows how to handle a mate bond like a normal person.”
“Pretty much,” Honey confirms.
“That’s comforting.”
“We’re not excusing Riordan,” she says. “What he did hurt you. You get to be angry about that.”
“But,” Roxy adds, “there’s a difference between what the idiot did and why the idiot did it.”
I look down at Gus again, running my fingers through the fur between his ears. “He said he was afraid.”
“Of you?” asks Honey.
“Of telling me. After what happened in the jail, he thought that if he told me I was his mate—and told me bonding myself to him would break his curse—I might feel like I had to choose him.”
Honey’s face falls.
Roxy stops eating.
“He would rather stay cursed,” I add, “than make me think I owed him the bond because I’m a cursebreaker and that’s the only way to break it.”
For a few seconds, none of us says anything.
Then Honey murmurs, “That sounds like Max’s brother.”
Roxy drops her spoon into the bowl, finished for the moment. “Fate doesn’t actually force anybody to do anything, you know. It’s just… Fate.”
“I’m a witch. Fated mates aren’t exactly covered in basic spellwork, you know.”
“It ain’t like that. It means Fate introduces you, that it knows you’re a perfect fit, and makes sure you feel a connection. That’s it. It doesn’t make the relationship for you. After that, it’s up to you.”
Honey nods. “You still have to choose each other.”
“And sometimes you don’t,” Roxy adds. “You can reject a mate. Riordan knows that better than anyone.”
I think of the certainty in his voice when he told me he was sure his mate would never bond herself to him. Now I know it’s because he was talking about me: a witch not only afraid of wolves, but one he had already accidentally controlled once—
A sudden howl, high-pitched and terrifyingly close, rises somewhere outside the back of the bakery.
I jerk so hard that I nearly knock Gus over on his side.