Chapter 8
BOONE
She is still sitting across my lap when she asks it.
Her mouth is red from kissing, her hair a mess around her shoulders, and my hands still warm from having them under her shirt. She looks straight at me, her hazel eyes steady and waiting.
"Yes," I say. No more stalling. She's waited long enough for the truth, and she deserves it clean. "You're my mate." I don't break eye contact. "I knew the moment I looked up and saw you at my table."
She doesn't shove off my lap or put distance between us. She just sits there on my thigh, one hand flat against my chest and the other resting in her lap. Her breathing is uneven, and the silence stretches until I'm hyper-aware of every place our bodies touch.
My wolf claws at the back of my skull, making it damn near impossible to think straight, but I keep my hands resting flat on her waist because she hasn't asked me to let go.
"Okay," she says finally.
"Okay?"
"I need a second." Her voice doesn't sound angry, just focused. "I'm not running off. I just need a second."
"Take all the time you need."
The apartment is dead quiet. I can smell her skin, sweet and warm—the exact scent that's been driving my wolf crazy since mid-September. I sit there gripping my self-control by a thread while she works through it.
When she looks up, her voice is steady. "You knew the second you sat down at my table."
"Yes."
"That was six weeks ago."
"Yes."
"We've been studying together, going to the festival, texting..." She stops, her fingers tightening into the fabric of my shirt. "You kissed me back. Knowing the whole time."
"Maisie—"
"I'm not finished." It isn't loud, just firm.
"I had to figure this out tonight from a database.
I sat in the library reading a sixty-page study on werewolf courtship behaviors and mapped them to my own life in a notebook because nobody would tell me.
" She stares right into my eyes. "Does that seem like something you should've let happen? "
There's no defending it. "No."
"Your friends knew."
"Tate figured it out pretty fast," I say. "But it wasn't his place to tell you. It was mine."
Her hand shifts over my chest, pressing flat over my heart, which refuses to slow.
"You're nervous," she says quietly.
"I've been nervous since September."
She watches me, searching my face. "Why didn't you just tell me?"
"Because you're human," I say. "When a wolf recognizes their mate, the instinct hits immediately.
I caught your scent and I knew. There wasn't any doubt.
But you walked out of the library that first day with a study schedule and my phone number.
If I'd sat down across from you and told you that you were my fated mate, you would've panicked and left. And you wouldn't have come back."
"So you made the choice for me."
"I chose to wait so you could actually get to know me first." I lean in a fraction, needing her to hear this.
"Fate isn't permission, Maisie. You came to this school to become a veterinarian, not to end up as somebody's mate.
I wanted you to know me before you had to decide what that word meant.
I didn't want you looking at me and feeling trapped, or feeling like you owed me something just because of my biology. "
She looks down at her hand against my shirt.
"I still wish you'd told me sooner," she says.
"You're right." I don't make excuses. "You're right, and I'm sorry."
"Why didn't you?"
"I was scared," I say bluntly. "Every time I thought about telling you, I was terrified I'd mess it up and lose you. That's not noble. It was just fear."
She studies me for a second, her expression softening just a fraction. "And what about earlier? When we were on the couch. You stopped."
"Because the bite is permanent," I tell her, my voice dropping low.
"Completing a bond changes you down to your DNA.
It can't be undone. I want you—I want you so badly my teeth ache—but I stopped because you deserve to make that choice with your eyes completely open.
Not in the middle of making out on my couch. "
She lets out a small, quiet breath. "Okay. That's... that's a good reason."
"I know it didn't feel like one ten minutes ago."
She lets out a short, real laugh, and the sound of it loosens the tight knot in my chest.
Then she looks right at me again. "Boone. If there wasn't a bond... if none of that existed, would you still want me?"
The question stings, but I understand why she needs to ask it. I lift a hand from her waist, move it up slowly so she sees it coming, and cup the side of her jaw.
"Can I tell you what the bond actually did?" I ask.
She nods slightly against my palm.
"It gave me your scent," I say. "It told my body that you're the person I can mate with.
That's the only thing fate gave me. It didn't tell me that you chew the cap of your pen when you're stressed.
It didn't tell me that you second-guess your answers on quizzes and then get furious when your first instinct was right.
And it didn't tell me that you'd steal my sweatshirts and pretend you just got cold.
" My thumb moves slowly over her cheekbone.
"The bond gave me recognition. You're the one who made me fall in love with you.
If the bond disappeared tomorrow, I'd still be sitting right here, holding you, hoping like hell you'd let me keep you. "
She stares at me, her eyes unguarded. After a moment, she turns her face slightly into my palm.
"I'm not saying no," she whispers.
"I know."
"I just need space to sort my head out. Everything's tangled up right now, and I need to figure out what I want without all the noise."
"That's fair," I say. "Take whatever time you need."
"I don't want to stop seeing you."
"Good. Because I'm not going anywhere."
She stays still for one more beat, close and warm. Then she leans up and presses her mouth to mine. It's soft, quick, deliberate.
When she pulls back and climbs off my lap, I drop my hands, feeling the cold air hit the front of my shirt the second she's gone. She grabs her backpack from the floor, still wearing my oversized gray hoodie.
At the door, she turns back. "Boone."
"Yeah?"
"For what it's worth..." She meets my eyes from the doorway, looking entirely like herself—stubborn, smart, completely real. "I don't think it's just the bond either."
She pulls the door shut, and the latch clicks into place.
The apartment goes silent.
I stay on the couch and don't move. Every nerve in my body is firing at once, screaming at me to get off my ass, tear the door open, and go after her. My wolf is pacing behind my ribs, frantic, demanding that I drag her back inside where I can see her and keep her safe.
I plant my hands flat on my knees, grip the denim of my jeans, and force myself to stay put.
I don't follow her.
If this is going to work, she has to come back on her own terms. Not because I cornered her in the hall, and not because the bond forced her hand. She needs the space to choose me for real.
I sit alone in the quiet living room, listening to the wind batter the window, fighting every instinct in my blood, and I don't move an inch.