Chapter 18 Tolin
TOLIN
Ican’t stop staring at her.
She’s been asleep for almost an hour, tucked against me in the bed I carried her to after she passed out.
My mate is in my arms. My mark is on her neck. And for the first time in years, my bear is completely at peace.
At peace, but not sleeping. Hibernation should have started days ago. I can feel the pull of it, the heaviness that wants to drag my bear under for the long winter rest. But every time the urge rises, he fights it. Shakes it off. Refuses.
Not yet, he seems to say. Our mate isn’t safe yet. Not settled. Not home.
When he finally goes under, I’ll be left weakened. Unable to shift. My enhanced senses dulled, my strength diminished. My bear won’t sleep until he knows our mate is protected, until she’s surrounded by clan, until there’s no threat he needs to defend against.
He won’t rest until she’s home. And honestly, I’m grateful for it.
The claiming mark is beautiful. Two crescent shapes where my teeth broke her skin, already healed over thanks to my saliva, leaving behind a permanent scar that tells the world she belongs to me. To us.
I trace my finger over it gently, watching her face for any sign of discomfort. She sighs in her sleep and burrows closer, her face pressed against me as she curls deeper into my arms.
Mine.
The word reverberates through the bond, rippling outward. I can feel her now in a way I couldn’t before. Not her thoughts exactly, but her emotions. The deep contentment of sleep. The afterglow in her body. The warmth spreading through her even in unconsciousness.
She’s happy. Even asleep, she’s happy.
I did that. I made her feel that way.
My bear exhales, deeply satisfied. We claimed our mate. We marked her. She’s ours forever now, bound to us in a way that can never be undone.
But anxiety coils beneath the calm. Because when she wakes up, I’m going to have to tell her the truth.
I should have told her before. Should have explained about fated mates, about the bond, about why my bear has been going crazy since she walked into my cabin. But I wanted her to choose me first. Wanted to know that she wanted me for me, not because some cosmic force decided we belonged together.
And she did choose me. She said yes when I asked to claim her. She gave herself to me completely, without knowing the full truth.
Now I have to hope she doesn’t hate me for keeping it from her.
She shifts against me, making a small sound in her throat. I hold my breath, watching her face as consciousness slowly returns.
Her eyes flutter open.
For a moment she just blinks, disoriented, her gaze unfocused. Then she winces and presses a hand to her temple.
“My head,” she mumbles. “Why does my head feel so strange?”
“Strange how?”
“Like...” She trails off, her brow furrowing. “Like everything is too loud. Too bright.” She sniffs the air suddenly, her nose wrinkling. “And what is that smell? Is something burning?”
“The fire’s almost out. Just embers now.”
“But I can smell it like it’s right next to me.” She sits up slowly, the sheet falling away from her body, and looks around the room with wide eyes. “Tolin, what’s happening? I can hear... is that a bird? Outside? It sounds like it’s in the room with us.”
I sit up beside her, keeping my movements slow and calm. “Take a breath. Try to relax.”
“How am I supposed to relax when I can hear a bird that’s probably fifty feet away?” Her voice is rising, panic creeping in. “And smell things I shouldn’t be able to smell? And my neck...” Her hand flies to the mark, her fingers tracing the raised skin. “What did you do to me?”
“Imani. Look at me.”
She turns to face me, her eyes wild, her breath coming too fast.
“I need you to breathe,” I say, taking her hands in mine. “Slow and deep. Can you do that for me?”
She nods jerkily and tries to comply, visibly struggling to take slower breaths.
“Good. That’s good.” I squeeze her hands gently. “What you’re experiencing is normal. It’s part of the claiming.”
“The claiming?”
“When I bit you. When I marked you.” I release one of her hands to touch the scar on her neck, my fingers gentle against the raised skin. “I claimed you as my mate. And when a shifter claims a human, the human takes on some of the shifter’s traits.”
She stares at me. “What kind of traits?”
“Heightened senses, mostly. Smell, hearing, sometimes sight. It’s temporary at first, comes and goes while your body adjusts. Eventually it will settle and you’ll be able to control it.”
“Control it.” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I can hear your heartbeat right now. I can smell the soap you used three days ago. How am I supposed to control that?”
“I’ll teach you. It takes time, but you’ll learn.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing. I can feel her emotions through the bond, a tangled mess of confusion and fear and underneath it all, a thread of curiosity.
“Is it mutual?” she finally asks.
“What do you mean?”
“The claim. The bond.” She touches the mark on her neck again. “You claimed me. But do I have to claim you too? For it to be complete?”
My bear perks up at the question. He wants her mark on us just as badly as we wanted ours on her.
“Yes,” I admit. “For the mate bond to be fully solidified, you’ll need to claim me too.”
Her eyebrows rise. “I have to bite you?”
“When the time comes.”
“When do I claim you?” She sits up straighter, suddenly alert. “Do we do it now? How does it work?”
My lips curve upward. My eager little mate.
“It needs to happen naturally,” I explain. “You can’t force it. When the bond is ready, when your body has fully accepted the connection, you’ll feel the urge. The need to mark me the way I marked you.”
“So I’ll just... know?”
“You’ll know.” I tuck a curl behind her ear. “Your instincts will guide you. It might happen tomorrow, might happen in a week. But when the moment comes, you won’t be able to stop yourself. And I don’t want you to.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing.
“So right now, the bond is only half complete?”
“Right now, you’re mine. But I’m not fully yours yet.” I take her hand and press it against my chest, over my heart. “I will be, though. When you’re ready.”
“What if I’m never ready? What if the urge never comes?”
“It will.” I hold her gaze, letting her see my certainty. “You’re my fated mate, Imani. What’s between us is real. Your body will recognize that, even if your mind is still catching up.”
She stares at me for a long moment.
“I want to,” she says softly. “Claim you, I mean. I want you to be mine too.”
“I already am.” I cover her hand with mine. “The mark will just make it official.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Why what?”
“Why did you claim me?” She pulls her hands from mine, wrapping her arms around herself. “You said claiming is permanent. That I’d be yours forever. Why would you do something like that if we’re not...”
She trails off, but I hear the word she doesn’t say.
Fated.
Here it is. The conversation I’ve been dreading. The truth I’ve been hiding.
“Imani.” I take a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s not. At least, I hope it’s not.” I scrub a hand over my face, trying to find the right words. “Do you remember when I told you about the pull? That inexplicable connection?”
“Yes.”
“I lied. When I said I didn’t know what it was.” I force myself to meet her eyes. “I knew exactly what it was. I’ve known since the night you took a shower and I smelled your true scent for the first time.”
Her brow furrows. “My true scent?”
“The cleaning solution you use at work. It masks your natural scent. That’s why I didn’t recognize you right away.
” I shake my head, the memory of those first two days still bitter.
“I treated you like garbage because I couldn’t smell what you were to me.
And then you showered, and the solution washed off, and I finally caught your real scent. ”
“Brown sugar,” she says slowly. “You said I smelled like brown sugar.”
“And vanilla. And shea butter. And something floral underneath.” I close my eyes, breathing her in. “The most perfect scent I’ve ever encountered. The scent of my fated mate.”
Silence.
I open my eyes to find her staring at me, her expression unreadable.
“Your fated mate,” she repeats.
“Yes.”
“So when you were avoiding me, when you were chopping wood for six hours, when you kept saying you couldn’t explain the pull...”
“I could have explained it. I just didn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wanted you to choose me.” The words come out rough, scraped from somewhere deep.
“Not because fate told you to. Not because some cosmic bond decided we belonged together. I wanted you to want me, Imani. The real me. The grumpy asshole who crushed your phone and ripped off your car door. I needed to know you could love me without knowing you were destined to.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. I feel the shift in her: surprise giving way to understanding, and beneath it all, what might be affection.
Then she smacks my arm.
“Ow.” I rub the spot, more startled than hurt. “What was that for?”
“For letting me think I was losing my mind!” She smacks me again. “Do you know how crazy I felt? Wanting you when I should have hated you? Feeling this pull that made no sense? I thought there was something wrong with me!”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“I know that now!” She throws her hands up. “Because apparently it was just fate the whole time! Fate that you knew about and didn’t bother to mention!”
“I was trying to—“
“Win my heart, yes, I heard you.” She crosses her arms, but her lips twitch with a smile. “Very romantic. Very noble. Also very annoying.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” But she’s definitely fighting a smile now. “You let me agonize for days. Days, Tolin. I lay in that guest room bed wondering why I couldn’t stop thinking about the mean bear man who yelled at me about a chair.”
“I didn’t yell about the chair. I firmly expressed my preferences.”
“You yelled.”
“I was passionate.”
She snorts, and the sound breaks the tension. She’s not angry. Annoyed, maybe. Amused, definitely. But not angry.
“So let me get this straight,” she says, settling back against the pillows.
“You knew I was your fated mate since the first night. You spent the next several days being alternately terrible and wonderful to me. You fingered me, showed me your bear, and then claimed me as yours forever. All without mentioning that we were literally destined for each other.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds bad.”
“It sounds ridiculous.” She shakes her head, but she’s smiling now, a real smile that reaches her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Maybe.” I reach out and pull her into my lap, drawing her against me. “But I’m your ridiculous now. You’re stuck with me.”
“Apparently so.” She traces the mark on her neck again, her fingers gentle against the raised skin. “So this is permanent?”
“Yes.”
“And the heightened senses?”
“Those will settle eventually. Your body is adjusting to the bond.”
“And us?” She looks up at me, her eyes searching. “What does this mean for us? What happens now?”
I cup her face in my hands, making sure she can see the truth in my eyes.
“It means you’re not leaving me. Ever.” I brush my thumb across her cheek. “It means we’re going to build a life together. Here, on this mountain, or wherever you want to be. It means I’m going to spend every day for the rest of my life making sure you have everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
“The green chair?”
“The green chair. And the home to put it in. And anything else you want.”
“And if I want a family someday? Kids?”
My bear practically purrs at the thought. Cubs. Our mate wants cubs.
“Then we’ll have a family.” I press a kiss to her forehead. “As many kids as you want. I’ll give you everything, Imani. Anything. Just say the word.”
She’s quiet for a moment, leaning into my touch. The warmth coming from her is unmistakable, tender and deep. Love, I hope.
“I’m sore,” she finally says.
“I’m not surprised. I wasn’t gentle.”
“No, you weren’t.” But she’s smiling. “I’m also starving. And I think I need a bath.”
I press a kiss to her hair and shift her off my lap, rising from the bed. “Stay here. I’ll run you a bath.”
“You don’t have to—“
“I want to.” I look back at her from the doorway, taking in the sight of her in my bed, wearing my mark, her curly hair wild around her face. “Let me take care of you.”
She settles back against the pillows with a sigh. “Fine. But I expect bubbles.”
“I don’t have bubbles.”
“Then I expect an apology for not having bubbles.”
I huff out a laugh and head to the bathroom.
The tub is deep and old, claw-footed and big enough for two. I turn on the water and wait for it to heat up, then add some of the oil my mother gave me last winter. It’s not bubbles, but it will make the water soft and fragrant.
When I return to the bedroom, Imani is dozing against the pillows, her eyes half-closed. I scoop her up carefully and carry her to the bathroom, lowering her into the warm water.
She moans as the heat envelops her, her whole body relaxing.
“Oh, that’s good.” She sinks deeper, the water lapping at her shoulders. “That’s really good.”
I kneel beside the tub, watching her. She looks peaceful now, the tension gone from her face, the worry smoothed away.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I say quietly.
She opens her eyes and looks at me. “I know.”
“I was scared. Scared you’d think I was trying to trap you. Scared you’d feel like you didn’t have a choice.”
“Tolin.” She reaches out and cups my face with a wet hand, water dripping down my jaw. “I did have a choice. You gave me one. You could have told me the first night, could have used the bond to keep me here. But you didn’t. You let me decide.”
“I needed you to want me.”
“I do want you.” She smiles, soft and sweet. “I chose you, Tolin. Before I knew about any of this. I chose the grumpy bear who makes terrible eggs and won’t let me clean his cabin and carries my car through a blizzard to get it fixed.”
I turn my head and press a kiss to her palm.
“Now stop moping and get in here with me,” she says. “This tub is big enough for two and my muscles hurt.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
I strip off my pants and climb in behind her, settling her between my thighs and drawing her close. The water sloshes over the edge but neither of us cares.
I pick up a cloth and start washing her gently, running it over her shoulders, down her arms, across the soft swell of her belly. She sighs and leans back into me, her head resting against my shoulder.
“This is nice,” she murmurs.
“It is.”
“I could get used to this.”
“Good.” I press a kiss to her temple. “Because you’re going to have to.”
She laughs, the sound bouncing off the bathroom walls, and my bear settles completely.
Our mate is happy. Our mate is here. Our mate is ours.