by Zoe Chant
So when the wizard-scientists had told him and his team that they’d destroyed their ability to recognize and bond with their mates, Ransom had assumed it was nothing more than an attempt to damage their morale. And when Pete and Merlin had said they’d managed to bond with their mates anyway, he’d figured that was just shifter-speak for falling in love.
But now Ransom knew the truth, with an understanding that went far deeper than anything his power of knowing could tell him. Mates were real. Natalie was his, and he was hers. He’d loved her already; this didn’t make him love her more, because that would be impossible. What he knew now was that neither of them would ever fall out of love.
After all the time he’d spent believing that he was broken and the entire world was untrustworthy, he’d finally found something unbreakable.
“I love you,” he said.
Natalie was bending anxiously over him, her rainbow hair shadowing her face, her changing eyes a pure dark gray. She’d never let go of his hand. “I love you too. Are you all right? Did it work?”
He nodded. “My hellhound says we’re mates.”
Inside his mind, his hellhound watched with fiery eyes. He was still dark and dangerous, but Ransom no longer feared him. He was a guard dog, a loyal hound, his fierce instincts now turned to protecting the ones Ransom loved.
Natalie gasped aloud. “What? I thought we couldn’t be. Shifters recognize their mates on first sight.”
“The wizard-scientists did something to stop that. But my hellhound recognizes you now. I recognize you now.”
Her lips were parted, pink and kissable. The desire to take that kiss he knew she wanted as much as he did, to sweep her into his arms and claim her as his own, was so overpowering that he scrambled off the bed, barely managing to avoid the sleeping puppies, and stumbled backward until he hit a wall.
Natalie let out a piercing shriek of frustration. “This is making me crazy!”
“Me too.” Ransom pressed his palms against the wall. “Me too.”
The person in the room next to them banged on the wall. A male voice boomed out, “SHUT UP, YOU TWO! YOU’RE MAKING ME CRAZY!”
“Sorry!” Ransom and Natalie called. Their voices were as united as their bodies couldn’t be.
Patience, said his hellhound in that deep rumble of a voice. You are mates. You cannot be parted forever.
Got any ideas? Ransom returned.
His hellhound cocked his head in a canine shrug, and repeated, Patience.
Ransom passed on the exchange to Natalie, who rubbed her forehead. “Right. Patience. The thing I have so much of. Your hellhound’s really changed, though. That’s great. What did you do?”
“I petted him.” When he saw Natalie’s disbelieving expression, he couldn’t help laughing. “Seriously.” He told her the whole story, then added, “I don’t want to sound like everything’s sunshine and daisies…”
“If you did, I’d be worried that you’d been replaced by a pod person.”
“I do feel a little sunshine and daisies. But it’s more like I’m not drowning anymore. There’s solid earth under my feet now, and I can go forward. With you.”
He held out his hand. She got up and walked slowly toward him, clasped his hand, and put her other arm around him, burying her face in his chest. They stood there in silence until he felt the hot wetness of her tears seep through his shirt.
“Natalie?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, the words stifled and barely understandable. “Sorry. I’m happy for you.”
He didn’t need enhanced intuition to know that wasn’t why she was silently crying. Holding her close, he said, “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Just tell me what’s really going on.”
She lifted her head. Tears were streaming down her face, faster than she could swipe them away. “Goddammit! I never do that.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just talk to me.”
Natalie pulled away from him, went to the bathroom, and splashed her face. When she came out, her eyes were dry of tears, but the sparkle that normally animated them was gone. With a chill, he realized that he’d seen that blank, flat stare many times before, when he’d caught a glance in the mirror. She sat down on her own bed, and held up her hand when he started to sit beside her. Instead, he sat across from her, and kept his hands to himself.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t let you get close,” she said. “I was afraid it would break you if you fell in love with me. Now you’re telling me we’re mates and you can walk forward if you walk with me. What’s going to happen to you at the end of the year?”
“Nothing. Because nothing’s going to happen to you.”
She scoffed angrily. “How can you keep believing that?”
Unexpectedly, his hellhound spoke. Why doesn’t she?
Ransom had wondered that before, but had always been distracted by answers that were easy, simple, and wrong, like because I’m not trustworthy or because I’m a failure. But Natalie had never thought badly of him, she’d never disbelieved him or lacked faith in him, and she knew that his power was real. So why had she so consistently disbelieved in the possibility of him saving her?
“Why don’t you believe me?” Ransom asked.
“If you could save me, you would’ve by now.”
“That’s not a valid argument. I might as well have said, before I met you, ‘If I was going to meet my mate, I would have by now.’ You’re too smart to believe that.”
She gave an uneasy shrug. “You said yourself it was only a small chance.”
“Do you believe there’s even a small chance?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Why?”
She flung out her hands. “What does it matter?”
It matters, growled his hellhound. The beast was as relentless as always, but Ransom could tell that the hellhound wasn’t attacking her the way he’d once attacked Ransom. He might be ruthless and hard, but he was a part of Ransom, and Ransom would never harm the woman he loved.
“I think it matters,” Ransom said. “I’m not telling you to believe something you don’t. I only want to know why.”
“Can’t you use your power?” Natalie muttered, then hurriedly said, “I’m not serious!”
But her tone had been pleading, not sarcastic. As if she’d blurted out something that she really did want.
“Which one?” he asked.
The dull look vanished from her eyes. Now she looked half-eager, half-terrified. Like someone psyching themselves up for freefall, except that Natalie had never been afraid to jump.
“If you want me to, I will,” he said.
“I can’t ask you to. Just because I’m too… too… I don’t even know.” She ran her hands through her hair, leaving it a wild mass of many colors. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself on my behalf.”
My power won’t hurt you, said his hellhound. Not anymore.
Ransom repeated that, adding, “If that’s the one you meant.”
She gave a single jerk of her head. “I’m too scared to talk about it. I’m too scared to think about it. But I don’t mind if you know. So go ahead, if it won’t hurt you. Take a look.”
“You realize I won’t just see it,” he warned her. “I’ll know your thoughts, your emotions…”
She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “That’s the point. Do it, Ransom. Do it now, before I lose my nerve.”
The truth was, he too was afraid. Whatever the worst moment of her life had been, it had to be worse than everything she’d already told him: losing her parents, living in group homes, having the prospect of a family dangled before her only to be snatched away. He almost didn’t want to know.
But whatever it was, she’d been living with it. Whatever it was, it had put that wild look in her eyes and that jangling edge in her voice. If she was forced to bear it, then sharing it was the least he could do.
Ransom closed his eyes and asked his hellhound to show him her worst moment.
He saw Nat
alie as a skinny little girl in a faded dress, her light brown hair in braids. Dust swirled around her ankles as she jumped out of a car and ran toward a mansion. He could feel her joy and excitement as she thought how it looked exactly like the photos, the big, beautiful house she’d be living in with her new family.
Puzzled, he thought, But she already told me about this.
The couple that got out of the car pulled her back before she could reach the steps. They told her coldly that she wouldn’t be going into that part of the house, ever. None of the children were allowed in. They had their own space with their own door.
Ransom forced back his fury as he watched them open another door and show her a cramped room with nothing but bare-bones cots, like Marine barracks minus the charm and livability. He couldn’t get distracted by his own emotions; he needed to focus on hers.
It’s all a lie, Natalie thought. A con. And I was stupid enough to fall for it. Of course I’ll never have a family. Of course I’ll never have a life like girls in books. I should know better by now. If I hadn’t believed them, and I’d just expected to be moved to a different group home, then I wouldn’t care now.
Her anger and disappointment and sadness filled her until she felt like it would rip her apart from the inside out. Frantic, desperate to end the pain she was in, she sought refuge in an ice-cold numbness. Natalie sat down on a cot, a little girl filled with a determination that would shame most adults, and made a vow to herself.
The next time someone promises me something too good to be true, I won’t believe it. Adults say kids forget everything when they grow up, so I swear now, I won’t forget this. I won’t forget how much it hurts when you believe promises because you want them to be true. I won’t forget how much it hurts when you believe in happy ever after. I swear this, now and forever: I’ll never believe again.
Chapter 22
Natalie knew exactly what Ransom had seen—and experienced—when he opened his eyes. He’d said it wouldn’t hurt him, but it had. Migraines weren’t the only kind of pain.
“I’m sorry—” she began.
He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She turned her face into his shoulder and breathed in his scent. Its clean masculinity was both a maddening temptation and a comfort. She wanted him so much, it hurt. But at least she had his touch, his presence, and his love. Wanting more than she could have was a recipe for heartbreak.
At least now he understood that.
“I wish I could back in time and get you a big, beautiful house and a loving family. But since I can’t, I’m really tempted to look up those foster parents of yours right now, so I can toss them off a cliff.” A beat later, he added. “Without a parachute.”
“I figured. People like that don’t deserve nice things like BASE jumping.”
“You do, though.” He laid his head down atop hers. “You deserve everything.”
He sounded so sad that she said, “I got a lot, you know. I got the circus. I got Merlin. I got to be a target girl and an acrobat and a trapeze artist. I’ve BASE jumped. I’ve seen the world. I’ve gone to Tomato Land. And I’ve got you, even if it’s only for a little while.”
“Don’t be so sure of that.”
Natalie sighed. “I just want to enjoy the time I have, and not break my heart asking for more. I don’t want be believe, and then be disappointed.”
Ransom lifted his head. His eyes had the intensity that had caught her attention the first time she’d seen him, like a fire burning dark instead of light. “Did you believe in the circus?”
“It took me a while. I kept dreaming that the circus was a dream, and I was waking up at the group home. Or in the house I burned down.” Slowly, she said, “It’s always felt a bit like a beautiful dream. When I got the diagnosis, I remember thinking, ‘Of course. I knew something like this would happen.’”
“What do you mean?”
“The diagnosis was the part that made everything feel real: I really did have this wonderful life, but I wasn’t going to have it for very long.” She touched a lock of Ransom’s hair, rubbing it between her fingers. It was so soft, and smelled a little like woodsmoke. “I found a man who’s brilliant and sexy and kind and brave and passionate and honest and reads cool books. A man I love, who loves me back. And we can’t have sex or even kiss, and I’ll only have you for a year. But that’s what makes it real. If I could have you for a lifetime, in every way, it’d be too good to be true.”
The dark fire in his eyes seemed to blaze up. If she hadn’t trusted him so deeply, she’d have flinched back. “What would it mean to you if we could have everything? If we could kiss and make love and be what we are now, for a lifetime?”
The force of his will made her imagine it. Her and Ransom and the puppies, in a big beautiful house. Having sex in the shower, the couch, the bed, the floor, up against the wall. Waking up in the morning with their naked limbs entangled, and kissing before their eyes were quite open yet. Having all of that, with no expiration date, like normal people did. A happy ending that lasted a lifetime.
She imagined herself believing it. And then she imagined how she’d feel when it turned out that it was only a beautiful dream.
The pain that knifed through her heart made her reflexively jerk away from Ransom. “I can’t believe in that! You shouldn’t either. It’ll only break your heart.”
The blaze in his eyes was undimmed. “If it breaks, it breaks.”
Natalie swallowed, then whispered, “Okay.”
“Come back here.” His tone was gentle, not commanding. She returned to his arms, and then lay back down on his bed. The pale light of dawn was starting to come through the windows. Ransom followed her gaze to it. “I feel like we’ve lived a lifetime in one night.”
“Me too.” In his arms, she felt a sense of fragile peace, like an opening flower. “I want to go home.”
“To the circus?”
“Go back, I meant. Back to Refuge City. I could stay at your apartment. We could just… live.”
“Sounds good to me. The apartment’s tiny, though, and the sublet is nearly up. We could pick out a new one together. Not another sublet, an apartment of our own.”
On a one-year lease, she thought. But she didn’t say it. Ransom believed what he believed, and she had to accept that. “I’d love to pick out an apartment with you. How come you always had sublets?”
“Same reason I switch out rental cars and phones, and try not to attract attention. I was afraid someone who’d been kidnapped by Apex, or one of their loved ones, would come after me.”
“And try to kill you?”
“Yeah, probably, but that wasn’t the part that scared me. My worst nightmare was someone who didn’t want to kill me—someone who wanted to accuse me, face-to-face. That seemed worse than an assassin.” She felt his chest move with a ragged breath. “It still does.”
Natalie, who knew all about fearing things more than death, didn’t argue. “We could get a bigger sublet.”
“No, no. I can’t drag you into that kind of life. If someone does track me down, I’ll have to face it. I gave up on fading into the background when we rented the Mustang, anyway.”
Mischievously, she said, “Does that mean I can dye your hair purple?”
“Nope.”
“What about taking you clothes shopping?”
She was amused to see a slightly panicked look cross his face. “What were you thinking of?”
“Bondage gear. A spandex trapeze leotard. A black leather jacket. Anything but your ‘professor who shops at K-Mart’ look.” Then, graciously, she said, “Unless you actually like that.”
“Not especially.” Then, after a moment, he said, “Would you like to see me in a black leather jacket?”
She grinned. “We are definitely going shopping.”
They dozed off for a few hours before the puppies woke them up with barking demands to be fed and entertained. They fed the pups, then went to the motel lobby and paid for the man in the room next door, lea
ving a note of apology with the clerk. Natalie wrote the first one, but Ransom claimed that it looked like “ME AGONIZE FOR BEING SO NOSY” and wrote a new one himself.
Then they had breakfast at an outdoor café, where they planned their trip back.
“I’d still like to hit Tomato Land again,” Natalie said.
“And paraglide?”
“And paraglide. They’re both on the way back anyway.” She seized his wrist. “And now… we’re going shopping.”
One mall and three shops later, she decided that she should have put WATCH RANSOM MODEL CLOTHES on her list. It was definitely a bucket list-worthy experience, even though it did require a few trips to the restroom for cold water to the face.
When they checked out of the motel, carrying their bags toward the car with Wally and Heidi at their heels, she took yet another moment to drink him in. Black boots, black jeans, white T-shirt, and black leather jacket; the only color was his red-brown hair. The jeans showed off his legs and the shirt showed off his chest and the jacket brought it all into focus. He looked strong and tough and a little bit dangerous: the kind of man your mother might warn you about.
He caught her eyeing him. “No more professor?”
“Professor Indiana Jones, maybe.”
He looked pleased, but said, “I’d need a fedora.”
“Not a whip?”
“I already nixed the bondage gear.”
She laughed and slid behind the wheel. The wind blew back her hair and the car practically purred under her hands. Ransom kept his arm around her shoulders and Wally sat in his lap with his head on her thigh, while Heidi curled up at his feet.
She had so much, it seemed greedy to want more. Greedy, and reckless, and dangerous. But she did.
By the time they arrived at Tomato Land, it was about to close for the day. They went to the nearby beach instead, the one with the paragliders. The next morning, they’d visit Tomato Land and go paragliding; the morning after, they’d head back to Refuge City.