Chapter 15
MATE
gus will guard… what exactly?
dunno, but gus will guard it.
— gus
Ash gets up too fast for someone who was technically dead two minutes ago.
One second he’s sitting on the edge of the bed looking dazed and newly alive, his pale hair mussed from unconsciousness while Penelope hovers nearby nervously wringing her hands, and the next he’s on his feet like something lit a fire under him.
I jerk to my feet and throw my hands up, warding him off as he climbs out of the bed awkwardly. Of course he’s awkward. He’s been dead for more than a week!
“Okay. I can see you’re surprised—”
His purple eyes flash. “I can see that you’re not.”
“I can explain.”
“Please do.”
Ash moves toward me. I dash around Penelope, moving to the other side so that I can keep the bed between us.
I open my mouth. Realize that I have no idea to make ‘I knew you were my mate, but didn’t tell you for reasons’ sound good.
He’s watching me closely as he takes another breath. A deeper one this time, so deep that his chest expands beneath the soft blue sweater stretched across it. His purple eyes lock onto me with an intensity that sends heat skittering straight down my spine.
“I never forgot that smell,” he says at last. “I’ve been haunted by it.
Ever since I realized too late what it might mean…
I was eighteen and an idiot. I let the scent drift away on the summer wind, but I’ve been chasing it ever since.
” He moves to the side, watching to see if I’ll bolt.
I’m Roxy Kane. I’m not afraid of anything…
anything except for Ash deciding that he wasted all that time…
“Then I was nineteen and confused. I moved to Virginia, but I could never find the scent again. I did everything I could, and I buried myself in my books when I couldn’t. ”
My mouth goes dry instantly, so naturally my smartass instincts kick in to save me from any sort of emotional vulnerability. “So I’m the reason you became a librarian?”
I don’t even get a pity laugh. Instead, he leans forward, bracing his hands on the bed as he stares across it at me and pointblank asks, “Are you my mate?”
I do a little jazz hands. “Surprise?”
His face clouds over. “And you knew all along?”
Uh-uh. I hold up one finger. “Not back in Onancock. I was sixteen then, and I had no clue. But—”
He grits his teeth. “But?”
Shit. This is not going anyway like how I thought it would. “You want the truth, baby? I’ll give you the truth. Once I smelled bergamot and deep woods in the dumpster, I knew. I knew it was you… and I knew that you were my mate.”
A look of sudden realization passes over his handsome features. Yeah, Ash. I think it just hit him why I was the one who could see him. Not because I found him, but because Fate mate it so I would.
He swallows. “But you didn’t tell me.”
“You were a little preoccupied being dead, remember? Besides, I always intended to confess the truth when you were alive if you didn’t figure it out for yourself.”
“I’m alive now,” Ash says, “and in case you’re wondering, Rox, I want you to know that it’s not just my nose that’s functioning properly. Every last part of me came alive when I caught your scent.”
Yeah, I’m totally a perv. My gaze goes right to his crotch—and to the erection that those tight jeans do shit to hide.
The room goes quiet. It’s thick with lust and pheromones and the understanding that this is the final turn in the mating dance…
and that’s when the Penelope lifts her hand and says, “I can tell that there’s something between you two and, um, that you probably need a moment to process Ashton’s healing, so if we could just talk about that compact real quick… ”
I snap my head over to look at Penelope. “I appreciate your help. Really. And I’m gonna make you a fucking amazing deal for the compact, but you’re right. We’re in the middle of something. So if you could come back to the store later—”
“Tomorrow,” Ash says firmly.
“Tomorrow,” I tell Penelope.
Penelope nods. After hesitating for only a few seconds, she begins to back toward the doorway. “I should probably return to the coven house anyway. I’ll be back tomorrow—”
“Late tomorrow,” Ash cuts in. “And my mate will have the compact ready and for free as a gesture of thanks for all you’ve done.”
I open my mouth to argue before realizing that losing the profits on some magic-touched mirror is a small price to pay for Penelope bringing my mate back to me. Instead, I nod and say, “Sounds good to me.”
Penelope murmurs something that might be an argument, might be an agreement, who knows. She leaves, her flowing skirt flapping behind her, and that’s all that matters at this moment.
I wait until I heard the door shut behind her.
For a second, I think about going down and locking up behind her before deciding that that’s not happening.
If I make a move for the door, my prey shifter mate is gonna go full predator on me and chase.
And while that sounds kind of promising, I’m pretty sure it’ll end with the both of us naked downstairs where anyone passing by the window will see.
Nope. Better to hope the closed sign keeps any lookie-loos away while Ash and I… become Ash and I.
Still, I’m Roxy Kane, and I’m not about to let anyone—even my mate—get away with what Ash just did.
With my hands on my hips and a smile curving my lips, I say, “You gonna tell me how to run my business, Ash?”
“I just told her what I had to to get her out of here.”
Seriously?
“You’re sneaky.” I smile widens. “I like it.”
“I sure hope so. I’ve waited a long time for you, Roxy. I meant what I said before. Sometime kept drawing me back to Virginia. I stayed, hoping I would find out, but I never did.”
“Because I was already gone.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you weren’t ready for me like I was ready for you.
I don’t regret a moment of it, either. I was able to go to a really good school, study something I was interested in…
I spent most of my time in Norfolk through undergrad and my Master’s program.
Maybe that was Fate’s plan, too. We both got to mature into the shifters each of us needed. ”
That… sounds really nice. What would I have done with a eighteen-year-old opossum male when I was sixteen and convinced I’d never make it out of the dumpster? Look at me now, though. I did. I own a shop and I’m comfortable in my skin—and my fur—at last.
For so long, I didn’t believe I was worthy of the gorgeous opossum boy who caught my attention.
Now? I have no idea why I ever thought he wouldn’t be thrilled to discover I was his mate.
My prey mate is slowly stalking me, taking small steps as he tries to meet me on the other side of the bed and if afraid he’ll spook me.
He thinks I’m afraid of him. Oh, baby. I might’ve been scared of rejection, but the way he’s looking at me… the way I can sense his need through the fledgling bond stretched between us… yeah. There’s no way that Ash Morgan is going to reject me.
And then he says, “Do you know why I came to Moonburrow? After so long in Virginia, hoping I’d stumble upon you there?”
That sounds like a trick question. “Because Honey has an apartment above the bakery and she said you could take it over since she moved in with Max.”
Ash nods, a thick strand of white-blond hair flopping forward into his eyes. Never looking away from me, still inching closer and closer, he tosses it back with a careless brush of his hand. “Very true. But do you know why Honey offered me the space?”
I don’t think he ever told me. “No.”
“The minute I got my Master’s, my mother started suggesting I give up on searching for my fated mate and choose any suitable female instead.”
Oof. Not the answer I was expecting to hear. Jealousy rears its ugly head inside of me, and both me and my raccoon have to resist the urge to hiss angrily.
“But I couldn’t,” he says before I can lose my shit. “Then Honey suggested Moonburrow. She thought I needed a fresh start. She didn’t know what I was searching for, but if I couldn’t find it in Virginia, maybe it was waiting for me in Moonburrow.
“She was right. If I’d been able to catch your scent the moment we met again, I would’ve known it was you. Now, I do… and I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me before.” Uncertainty flickers across his face. “Is it me? Would you rather have another mate?”
The idea that I would want anyone but Ash Morgan shocks me hard enough that I bark out a laugh.
He stops in his prowl.
Oh, no. That’s not going to work for me. I… I’m kind of digging the predatory side to my opossum, and if I need to be very, very clear that I want him—
“Ash. I have no idea how you can even ask that with a straight face. Seriously? I chose you when you were dead. You understand that? I seduced a ghost… I fucked a ghost, and you think I want anyone other than you?”
He relaxes enough to be noticeable.
I blow him a kiss from across the bed. “No, baby. I don’t want another mate.” And, for the first time since he climbed out of that bed, I take a step toward him. “I want you.”
The shift in him is immediate. Just from staring in his beautiful violet eyes, I watch as the polite, careful librarian veneer shatters at once beneath something far more primal. Something possessive. Hungry.
I expect him to leap at me. I should’ve known better. He’s still Ash—my Ash—and before he does that, he lowers himself to one knee.
“There’s going to be plenty of bouncing,” he informs the floor solemnly. “Be a good Gus and guard the hallway for me, would you?”
Oh. Duh. Hormones and lust have gone right to my brain because I totally forgot that Gus was in here with us.
He didn’t leave when Penelope did, but right after Ash makes his request, Gus lets out a stream of chitters and clicks.
Ash nods, and the opossum disappears through the open doorway, his pink tail slipping through just before Ash slams the door shut.