Page 5 of Mating Season
Then I charge that motherfucker and use the full force of my seven hundred pound weight to send him sailing. He lands several yards away, his back hitting a tree, and I could swear I heard it crack. He’s screaming and trying to scramble away.
“Yeah, how does it feel, motherfucker...to be the prey for once?” But of course human speech doesn’t come out of my mouth, only bear chuffs. But I know what I said. I smell the acrid aroma of urine as he full on pisses himself.
And then, without hesitation or a single moral quandary, I maul him to death.
I don’t normally maul humans, but this guy has me pissed off. And I don’t really know why until he’s dead and I’ve mademy way back over to her. Her terrified eyes meet mine, and then she faints.
I want to follow her down the dark path to sweet oblivion because I’ve just realized why I lost my chill and killed that guy. This girl is mine. My mate. And I cannot let another living male touch her ever the fuck again.
4
COOPER
Now.
She thinks I’m delusional, and she probably wouldn’t be that wrong but for far different reasons than she thinks. This is the first time I’ve ever had a woman in my den. Oh, I’ve had them in my penthouse in the city. I’m not a monk. But I’ve always known those could only be one night stands and short flings at best.
I can’t do that to a woman… let her fall in love with me and then throw her away because fate decided to give me my mate at an inopportune time. A shifter could be married with four kids and deliriously happy, but if they were foolish enough to choose their own partner and then their true mate showed up, that relationship they thought was so special, is over.
I’ve seen decades-long loves end, all because that bitch fate decided to fuck around with some lives. So, like smart shifters, I have remained a bachelor and never let any woman get too close to me—mostly, anyway. Anyone who isn’t your true mate is for playtime only.
And here she is, a gorgeous petite brunette with shimmering green eyes, all for me.
I’m only thirty. Often it’s decades before a shifter finds their mate. In a lot of ways I’m lucky… and in a lot of ways I’m not.
A mate can be another shifter or a human, and I was hoping against all hope it would be another shifter because shifters understand this. They accept this. A human does not. Rosalie cannot understand how impossible it would be for me to let her go. I just rescued her from a fucking rapist in the woods, and I absolutely know how this looks to her. But until the mate bond is complete, she won’t understand… can’t understand.
I really hope I don’t have to become a monster to secure this union because the thoughts running through my mind... the needs… And I don’t just mean sexual. There is a clawing need for her to be here with me, for her to never leave my sight… at least until the bond is complete. Then I won’t have to worry as much. I’ll know where she is, what she’s feeling, if she’s in danger. At all times.
But right now? She’s fragile.Thisis fragile. I could have lost her last night. If I’d been just a little bit later would my mate be dead in the woods right now? All because I ate just one too many candy bars to entertain random viewers on the internet?
Would fate send me another or would I just ignorantly wander the earth for centuries thinking she was coming when I’d already failed her?
“If you’re a bear, why do you have bear skin rugs in here? That seems a little psychotic don’t you think? It would be like if I had a people-skin wallet in my bag.”
I sigh. I’m sitting on the floor next to her chair, inspecting her swollen ankle. I wish I could have done something about it last night, but… bear. While older shifters can shift at will, most of us can only do partial shifts until the three nights of the fullmoon where we must shift and don’t return to human form until morning.
I was wide awake most of the night counting down the time until I could shift back and look at that injury and really tend to it properly.
“Can you wiggle your toes for me?”
“Foot fetish?” she asks, the snark in her tone as sharp as a razor blade. She’s cute as fuck, but that mouth… that mouth is going to get her into some trouble.
“I just want to make sure it’s not broken and see the extent of your injuries. As for the rugs, those are my ancestors.”
“Oh, that makes you sound well-adjusted and safe to be around,” she says.
This is going to be a long day. “Shifters live a long time. Centuries. We age much more slowly than humans. We also don’t have the kind of rabbit-like fertility humans have. When one of us dies, part of our rituals to honor the dead involves preserving the… hide and passing it down. It’s a way in which the ancestors are always with us.”
“What if they die as a human?”
“They won’t. Shifters always shift before they die. Now wiggle your toes.”
She does, reluctantly, and I’m relieved at least it isn’t broken. I stand and take her hands in mine to help her up.
“Now try to put some weight on it.”
She does and grimaces against the pain.
