Page 9 of Mating Season
“What are you doing now?” Nikki asks.
“Booking a last minute flight. I need to get out of here tonight.”
“No, what you need to do is sleep.”
Rosalie shakes her head and types quickly to pull up a site for airline tickets. “I’ll take a red eye and sleep on the plane. I’m going to have to use my savings and fly first class though, so I can elevate my ankle.” She types and scrolls. “Dammit, If I want first class, there’s a layover in Phoenix.”
“Won’t it be safer to go during the day?” Nikki says.
“No.”
I wish she didn’t have a roommate. I could so easily get into this apartment and corner her until morning. But I can’t do it now, not with a witness. No one else can see me shift back.
Fuck.
Rosalie books her flight and steps away from the computer. She’s flying across the country to Los Angeles. And there’s no way I’m going to be able to either be on that flight, or catch her tonight. Her flight leaves in three hours… and I’ll still be a bear then.
“Be rational, Rosalie. You have your first big gallery opening in a few weeks. You can’t miss that. It could be your big break in the art world.”
“I can’t get a big break if I’m dead,” she says.
And I feel a little insulted. I know she can’t tell her roommate the full truth, but dead? She knows I’m not going to kill her. That’s what she’s afraid of—that she’ll live a good long time—as my mate.
What a horror show… having to be pampered and loved and spoiled and living in an expensive penthouse with a rich age-appropriate guy that most women would kill for, who would never harm you and only protect you. What a damsel. What a nightmare. How does she get through it? I’m still so annoyed that she’s being this dramatic about this. That she’s…rejectingme. She should just accept her fate like I have.
Fucking humans.
“They don’t know what I look like, you can go in my place,” Rosalie says. “Or maybe I’ll be back by then. I’m not sure yet. I just know I can’t stay here right now. I need to get away and think.”
I wait outside the window until she’s about to leave, then I climb down the fire escape and wait in the parking lot. Maybe Icoulddrag her off. But could I do it without hurting her? She’ll fight me. I know she will.
I watch her load her bags into the trunk of her friend’s car. She’s made arrangements for her own car which is still in the forest, probably parked somewhere near mine. She’s convinced her friend not to drive her to the airport. The excuse was… “It’s really late, you shouldn’t be out driving by yourself this late.” A neighbor will take Nikki to pick up her car at the airport parking garage tomorrow morning.
I know the real reason though. Rosalie worries I’m out here, she worries that her friend might be in danger from a crazed bear intent on staking a claim. I would like to say she’s wrong about that, but I’m not sure. The longer the mating goes without completion the more unhinged I’m starting to feel.
She scans the parking lot and finally her eyes lock on mine. It’s as though I’m her worst fears realized, and I hate that look on my mate’s face.
I wish I could talk to her.
“Don’t go, Rosalie. Please.” But all that comes out are animal sounds.
“Cooper, is that you?”
“No, it’s another random bear,” I say. I don’t know why I bother speaking when the words won’t come out human.
“Forget about me. I’m not your mate. This is crazy.”
She backs slowly toward her car door, and I can’t stop her without hurting her, so I just watch helplessly as she gets into the driver’s side and drives away. It takes everything in me to ignore the instinct to chase her. I need to get back to my own car and wait for the sun to come up.
7
COOPER
Iwake tangled up in my family’s bear skins. I fell asleep in my den, clutching Rowan’s pelt. My twin brother was the last of my family, and now I’m the last of my line. Not the last of all bear shifters—it’s not quite that dire yet. But it may as well be. Rowan is the reason I never wanted a human mate.
His rejected him and ended up dying before he could get her to change her mind, and then soon after, he followed her to the other side.
I think back to his last days, and my repeated pleas to him fill my mind.
