Chapter 3
Angie
As someone who listened to more true crime podcasts than music, I should be freaking out. I was alone in a car with a man I met hours ago, watching the sun go down and trusting him to drive me to a small town in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness to meet his family.
But he was a shifter. Shifters weren’t serial killers, were they?
Considering how rare animal attacks were, it was safe to assume that shifters in any form were less dangerous than human men.
I peeked at Rhett through the fuzzy hood of his winter coat. I felt ridiculous stuffed into the oversized thing, my hands disappearing in the long sleeves.
Before we left the airport, he found a quiet corner and unzipped his bag, pulling out hats, gloves, scarves, and a coat that had to be special ordered for someone his height. He was adamant that we couldn’t leave for the parking garage until I was properly dressed.
Further proof that he wasn’t trying to kill me. The man was just too considerate for that.
And thank God, because I would have frozen to death waiting for an Uber to take me to a hotel.
Alaska was cold. Colder than I knew cold could be. I should have known better, but I was in such a hurry to fly out here and rip my pride back from Evan’s hands that I didn’t bother checking the weather.
Or booking a hotel, or a rental car.
Or figuring out how the hell I was going to get to the remote address I found for him when I was sleuthing around.
I leaned forward in my seat, studying the heavy flakes of snow that were pelting the windshield.
“You have four-wheel drive, right?”
He tapped the steering wheel with an appreciative smile. “This thing is a tank in the snow.”
“But can you actually see the road? Are you sure your windshield wipers are going fast enough?”
“I grew up here,” he said, his confidence settling over me like a comforting weight. “A few flurries aren’t going to bother me.”
“Okay, you grew up in Alaska. That’s good to know. We should probably share our life stories if we’re going to pretend to be married in front of your whole family in like three hours.”
“Mated.”
“What’s the difference, exactly?”
“Marriage is a contractual agreement. All you have to do is sign a piece of paper to undo it. Mating is for life. The only exception is death.”
“Okay, but what would stop me from just walking away and starting over? Is there no such thing as a mating license?”
His hands flexed on the wheel like he was holding himself back. The answer came out gritty. Was I irritating him with questions already? He asked me to do this. I couldn’t go in blind.
“Shifters in most countries are required to get documents to prove their mating, but the document doesn’t make it official. The bond does.”
“What in the world is a bond? And why is your mom sick without one?”
“It’s—it’s like—" His brow furrowed, and there was something adorable about his stern, concentrated face. In the dimming interior of the car, his eyes seemed more bronze than brown. “It’s not something that you can really describe with words. It’s just…
magic. Whether you’re fated or chosen mates, a bond forms between you that connects you in body and soul.
There are pack bonds too, but they’re nothing compared to a mate bond. ”
He cleared his throat. “Or so I’ve been told.”
I twisted in my seat, dropping the hood of the coat and staring at him like he was a crazy person. Because he was.
“Mates have a magical bond between them. Like what—a Twilight movie?”
“I don’t know what a Twilight movie is.”
“You really did grow up in bumfuck Alaska.” I wriggled my hands out of my sleeves so I could run my fingertips over the smooth coat of my blue nail polish. “You and your mate are like spiritually connected? Is it instant? Can you read minds? I don’t know if that’s cool or horrifying.”
“For shifters, it’s instant. For shifter and human pairings, it’s more complicated. But no, there is no mind reading involved.”
The coat zipped around me was suddenly stifling. I might have bitten off more than I could chew. What was new?
“I feel like you probably should have included that in your proposition. How are we supposed to pretend to know each other backward and forward and have some magical mind-reading bond between us in front of the people who know you best in the whole world? They’re going to call bullshit and send me packing in like ten minutes. ”
“There’s no mind-reading,” he repeated. “And they won’t because we aren’t going to pretend we know each other forwards and backwards.
We’re going to tell them the truth. We’re fated mates.
We met at the airport. You walked up to me and announced to everyone in earshot that we were mates, and the moment I caught your scent, I knew you were right. ”
That glowy thing started in his eyes again, and he rumbled, “You smelled like butterscotch and sweat.”
“Please, for the love of all things holy, do not tell your mother I smelled like sweat.” I swatted his arm with a loose sleeve. “And don’t make that face when you say it. I know wolves are probably all about smells, but you look way too horny.”
A surprised laugh burst from Rhett, and a flush crept up his neck. Good, he deserved to be flustered just as much as I was.
“Do you have like a mega sense of smell even when you aren’t shifted? Can you smell me right now?”
“Yes, and yes.” He turned his head away from the road, gaze burning through me.
“Not looking any less horny.”
Rhett cleared his throat again—it seemed to be a nervous tic—and murmured, “You do smell good.” He pressed his lips together, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“Yeah, and sweaty, apparently.” I rubbed another polished fingernail, squinting anxiously at the dinner plate sized snowflakes. “How is a fated mate different from a chosen mate?”
“A shifter can decide to take a mate and bond with them, or they can wait to find the mate the Goddess chose for them. Fated mates are the perfect match. Most shifters believe the bond is an eternal tie between their souls that exists in this life and the next.”
“How would you know if someone was your fated mate?”
His eyes brightened more—if that was even possible—and a low sound like thunder started in his chest. “Do you know that feeling when you sink into your own bed after a long day? It’s like that. Like remembering where you belong.”
“Oddly specific.”
I mulled over his words, feeling that weird tensing in my chest again. It was like someone was pulling my hair, except it was happening to my heart.
Maybe I needed to eat something?
Exhaling through pursed lips, I tugged my knees up into the seat. The car seemed to be drifting slightly on the road, and I decided it was safer if I just didn’t look. Otherwise, I was going to start anxiously side seat driving, and then he probably would crash into a snowbank.
“You do realize this is totally crazy and there’s no way I’m going to convince your family that we’re the perfect eternal Twilight match.”
He shook his head, a soft smile on his lips. “I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, it’s not.”
“But look at us!” I unzipped the jacket enough to point at the tattoos on my chest. “Unemployed tattoo artist and—what did you say you do again? We’re like mint and citrus.”
Rhett angled his head so he could see me and the road at the same time.
He stared at my tattoos longer than was polite, and I couldn’t decide if I was offended or relieved that he was checking out my cleavage.
I might have been dumped and fired within the same month, but at least I could still get some.
Though, judging from this mate conversation, shifters did not do casual hookups. How could you when you knew there was this perfect, made-for-you-by-a-goddess woman out there waiting for you to find her?
I suddenly felt a little guilty for checking Rhett out. How would I feel if I were his mate, and I knew he was flirting with some random woman he met at the airport and pretending to be mated to her?
Well, shit. No going back now.
“I didn’t know you were a tattoo artist.”
“Only in theory. I’ve been fired twice. I have this problem with timing…”
“Like getting to the airport on time to catch a flight?”
I grimaced. “Something like that.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I noticed that.”
I zipped my jacket back up and put my hands in front of the heater vent. “Okay, Teen Wolf, what else do I need to know?”
By the time Rhett was finished explaining scenting, mate marks, pack bonds, and shifting, I felt dizzy.
Or maybe that was the road, as it seemed to twist and turn through trees with no end in sight.
I wasn’t keeping track of how long we were driving, but our speed seemed to have decreased significantly.
I was about to ask—again—if it was safe to drive in these conditions when flashing orange lights caught my attention in the distance.
“Damn,” he growled, that hard edge returning to his voice. “I thought we would make it.”
I clutched the armrest of the seat, peering nervously through the windshield. “Please tell me that you meant ‘make it before dark’ and not ‘make it there alive.’”
Rhett took one hand off the wheel and briefly rubbed the top of my hand. For some reason, it actually did reduce my anxiety, even though he really should have two hands on the wheel.
He pumped the brakes, his arm flying out to brace me as the back of his SUV fishtailed. I held my breath while the car seemed to slip and slide forever, skidding to a stop where a series of orange cones blocked our path. Beyond them, the road was a mass of swirling white, the surface invisible.
The flashing lights were on top of a digital sign that said, “ROAD CLOSURE. WEATHER ALERT.”
I clicked the radio on, fiddling with it to find the station listed on the sign.
“Don’t bother,” Rhett clicked it off again. “We’re stuck either way. We’ll have to turn back.”
“Back to Fairbanks?”
“There was a motel ten miles back or so. We can hole up there until the snow passes.”