by Liv Rider
“Oh.” A warm glow spread throughout his body when the realization hit him that Thomas was talking about him. “Um.” What was he supposed to say to that? He wished he felt as certain, so he could say something like that too.
Thomas put his coffee down. “Too much? That was too much, wasn’t it.”
“A little bit. I’m not a shifter. I don’t feel it like you do.”
“Parker and Mitchell told me to take it slow, but after last night…” Thomas trailed off. “I didn’t want to wait any longer. You deserve to know.”
“I’m glad you told me. It explains so much, like why you came to Hampton’s to see me.”
“Why I gave you the entirely wrong impression.” Thomas picked up his spoon. “Now you know.”
Joel nodded. Now he knew the truth. “This is the thing you wanted to tell me, but couldn’t. Not in the park.” And he’d been thinking it was some terrible secret.
“Yes! You have to agree that it wasn’t the right time.”
“Definitely not, no.” He wasn’t sure how he would’ve reacted if Thomas had told him a few days ago. “Anything else you haven’t been telling me?” He meant it as a joke, but Thomas’ face turned serious.
“I don’t think so. You know the important things about me. I’m a dragon shifter, I’m a Keeper of the Peace, and I’m your true mate.”
His stomach turned to stone when Thomas mentioned his job. “You’re a Keeper.”
How were the shifters of Lewiston going to react to their Keeper having a human mate? Would they disapprove of him? Would they expect Joel to be at events?
Would news get back to Barnhill?
“Yes?” Thomas sounded confused. “You already knew that.”
What would Thomas’ friends think of him? His council? His family?
“Joel?”
Joel took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “You’re a Keeper. People will know about me, about me being your mate.”
“Yes. I think that’ll be a good thing. Some shifters might think it’s strange at first, but it’ll be good for the shifter-human couples, you know, if they see that their Keeper has a human mate too.”
Oh God, he was supposed to be an example? What did Thomas expect from him?
“You definitely have to meet Parker and Mitchell.” Thomas continued talking with a smile on his face. “I’ve already told them about you. Not too much,” he added, “nothing about your past, obviously. Just that I met my mate at the welcoming event and he was human. I should probably tell them first that I’ve told you about us being mates. Mitchell will tell me I’m moving too fast, but I’m sure they’ll both be happy to meet you. Next step is telling my council. You don’t have to meet them, not immediately. They’ll need some time to get used to it first, so don’t worry about that.”
Joel was definitely worrying about it. Meeting Thomas’ friends was one thing, but meeting his council made everything so formal. So official. And Thomas said they needed time to get used it. Were there shifters on the council who would be against a human mate? His stomach squeezed together nervously.
“Joel? You’ve been very quiet.” Thomas leaned forward, searching Joel’s face. “Oh great, I did worry you. Sorry.”
His first impulse was to lie and insist he was fine, but if they were going to be mates, he had to be honest. “You are moving too fast for me. With the whole council thing. Do they really need know any time soon? Does it matter?”
“Well, they have to be informed, but I guess it doesn’t matter if that happens next week or next month.” Thomas sounded confused. “If you’re worried that they won’t accept you, they’ve got no choice. Every shifter respects the bond between true mates.”
It wasn’t as reassuring as Thomas intended it. “I don’t want to meet them like that, with them secretly resenting me or disliking me. I’ve had enough of that growing up.”
“They won’t resent you. I wouldn’t let them.”
Joel shook his head, then gave Thomas a sad smile. “They wouldn’t do it where you saw them. People are pretty sneaky about that kind of thing. There are a lot of different, tiny ways to let someone know you dislike them. Little things someone else might not even notice. Trust me, I’ve got experience with being treated like that. I don’t know your council. Maybe they’ll be perfectly nice to me. But if you’re saying that they’re going to need time… it doesn’t really inspire any confidence.”
“I could mention I’ve met my mate and that he’s human. I wouldn’t even need to say it’s you to see how they react.”
Joel felt relieved. Thomas was thinking along with him instead of arguing that it would be fine. “That’s a good idea. I mean, I know you said there weren’t any reports filed here about me leaving Barnhill, but if your council knows I’m your mate, well, I know how gossip works.”
“We can take it slow with my council. I’ll admit, I’m curious to see how they react too. But Joel, you haven’t told me how you feel about it. About being mates.”
“I don’t know.” He prodded the cereal and fruit with his spoon. “It sounds so great. So unbelievable. It explains a lot, like why I felt so attracted to you as well. But it’s also overwhelming and kinda weird. You’re so certain I’m the one for you, but I barely even know you. Then there’s your work and your council and you saying I’ll be an example. I don’t know if I want to do that. I don’t want to get involved with shifter politics. I’m not a shifter. Why do I need to be involved? Just because I’m your mate?”
Thomas looked hurt at that last remark. “My work is important to me. I’d like you to be a part of it and I think your insight as a human could be very useful. We have plenty of humans in relationships with shifters, so I think it would do them good knowing I’m in a relationship with a human as well and that I understand them and their concerns. That I’m not just thinking of shifters.”
“You don’t need to be mated to me to understand them.” Joel was getting frustrated. It was great that Thomas was dedicated to being a good Keeper, and under any other circumstance he would’ve cheered Thomas on for caring about humans involved with shifters. Right now though, he’d prefer it if Thomas could forget about them for a moment. “Just talk to them. Listen to them. You don’t need me for that.”
“Sure, but I want you by my side for it, so you can help.”
“What if I don’t want to?” He hadn’t even had one bite of his cereal, but he didn’t think he could swallow it down if he tried. Thomas couldn’t expect this from him.
“You don’t want to help people?” Thomas sounded puzzled. “Why not?”
Great, now Thomas was putting words in his mouth. “I don’t want to have to help. You can’t—it’s not my responsibility. You’re the Keeper of the Peace. It’s your job, not mine. I’m not expecting you to start picking up shifts at Hampton’s, am I?”
Thomas had opened his mouth and looked ready to argue until Joel had mentioned his own work. Then he promptly closed his mouth and his cheeks turned a little red in embarrassment. “You’re right. It’s unfair to expect that of you.”
“Thank you,” Joel replied, from the bottom of his heart. “I get that you love your job and you want to help people in your district. That’s great. But it’s not my job.” He pushed his chair back. “Look, this is a lot to take in for me, okay, even without you wanting to introduce me to your council and wanting me to help out.”
“You don’t need to do that if you don’t want to.”
“Yeah, I know. But you want me to want to, and I don’t know what I want,” Joel hoped Thomas understood him and wasn’t feeling insulted. “I want to keep dating you. I want more nights like last night, and not just the mind-blowing sex part.”
“You’re leaving?” Thomas got up too.
“It’s almost ten. You have to get going and I need to think about this.” Thomas walked around the table towards him, then stopped a few feet away, looking uncertain. “And you are way too distracting.” Joel didn’t want Thomas to feel bad or t
o worry, but he needed to think about this at home, where Thomas wasn’t there to kiss him or cuddle up to.
“So are you. I’d almost forgotten about my meeting.” Thomas gestured for Joel to follow him to the hallway. “Take all the time you need to think about it, okay?”
Joel nodded, kneeling down to put on his shoes. “I’ve got an afternoon and evening shift, so I’ll be home tonight pretty late. Don’t freak out if you don’t hear from me today.”
“I wouldn’t freak out!”
Joel looked up at him. Thomas was leaning against the door, arms folded and looking at Joel with a slight pout. “I’ve heard plenty about fated mates, Thomas. You would 100 percent freak out.” He could never understand how deep the bond went between fated mates, but he had heard plenty about the intense feelings involved.
Thomas was silent for a long moment, then sighed. “Okay, I would freak out a little and think you had decided to hate me. Happy now?”
“No.” Having finished putting on his shoes, he got up. “I just don’t want you to worry too much about me, or us. If you don’t hear from me tonight, just assume I collapsed straight into bed after work.” It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.
“But you don’t mind if I message you?” His voice was hesitant, which made Joel smile. Thomas really was doing his best not to push things.
“Yes, that’s fine. But don’t worry if I don’t get back to you immediately.” He kissed Thomas, which led to a deeper kiss and Thomas pulling him close. Joel lost himself in the sensation of having Thomas’ arms around him, his strong body pressed against his own, and how good it felt to kiss him. He made himself pull away. “We should stop,” he muttered, more to himself than to Thomas. “Before I suggest we call in sick today.”
“Mmm, I don’t think my council would believe that.” Thomas nuzzled his hair, then pushed Joel away. “I promise to only freak out a little bit if I don’t hear from you today.” He grinned. “And you promise to not freak out if you don’t hear from me.”
Joel laughed. He doubted that would happen, especially now that Thomas had told him about being fated mates. “I’ll try not to.”
10
Thomas
We should be with our mate.
Thomas agreed wholeheartedly with his dragon, but he also had a job to do. And he’d promised to give Joel space to think about things.
His mind kept going back to last night and the way Joel had felt in his arms. How good he’d tasted, how wonderful he’d smelled, and how sweet his moans had been…. He’d never been happier than waking up that morning with Joel in his bed. It had felt right, like his whole life had led up to this moment.
Then he’d nearly ruined everything during breakfast. Joel hadn’t even eaten anything. Thomas hoped he had something to eat at home.
“Thomas? What do you think?”
“About what?” He looked up from the papers in front of him. “Sorry, where were we?”
Theresa shook her head while Barry and Karen exchanged looks. Across the table, Scott sighed and Alexandra was outright glaring at him. Louis sat back, a smile on his face.
“Theresa’s point about bug shifters,” Louis said. “Same as when you zoned out five minutes ago.”
“Stop calling them bugs, Louis. They’re insects,” Theresa told him. “And they have a point that they’re not being represented on the council right now.”
“Because there are hardly any of them in the district anyway!” Louis argued. “There’s what, one family of butterfly shifters or something? And we have that one spider shifter guy, and that’s it.”
“Spiders aren’t insects,” Barry said.
“That’s not the point,” Louis insisted. “The point is—”
“I think you could at least do him that courtesy, even if he’s the only spider shifter in the district.”
“This isn’t about the Andersons, Louis. We have more insect shifters in the district,” Theresa told him. “Which you’d know if you actually read the reports.”
“Do you have any idea how much I already have to read from the wolf shifters?”
Thomas sighed as Theresa and Louis bickered. He had to do something. “Everybody, quiet. Now.”
Even Louis closed his mouth.
“Louis, I know there are a lot of wolf shifters in the district, but you’re on the council. You can’t just focus on them. You’re here for all the shifters in the district. And yes, that means keeping up with the reports,” Thomas told him. He turned to Theresa. “If there are shifters who don’t feel represented by the council, I can look into it, but we’re not adding more members to the council. Six should be enough. We have had more insect shifters moving here over the past few years and Barry is stepping down…” He paused to look at the older owl shifter. “In a couple of months, right?”
“Five,” Barry replied. “But I don’t know about giving my seat away to the insects.”
“We won’t give your seat away. We don’t even know if there are suitable candidates who are insect shifters. I’d have to look at the numbers and talk to them. Theresa, can you email me the contact information of the insect shifters you’ve been talking to? I need to know what’s going on. Maybe it’s as simple as a few recent decisions we’ve made that don’t work for them and now they feel ignored and left out.” In his experience, a good conversation was enough to take away those resentful feelings. They would obviously have to do better in the future, but he couldn’t do anything if he didn’t know what the core problem was. “What’s next on the agenda?”
Alexandra leaned forward. “How about you tell us why you’ve been zoning out? Is something wrong?” Her question made everyone else look at him with concern.
He’d told Joel he’d inform his council about having found his mate and now was as good a time as any. “Nothing’s wrong. More the opposite. I’ve found my true mate. He’s human.”
That led to a round of surprised gasps from the council members. “He?” Barry asked, frowning.
“Human?” Louis stared at him.
“When?” Theresa asked.
“Does he know?” That was from Alexandra.
Scott leaned across the table to punch his shoulder. “Congratulations!”
Thomas smiled at the turtle shifter. “Thanks.” He looked around the table. Karen was whispering something to Barry, while Louis, Alexandra, and Theresa all looked at him expectantly. “Yes, I’ve told him. And yes, he’s human. That’s all you need to know for now.”
“How did he respond?”
“What do you mean, that’s all we need to know?”
“What aren’t you telling us?”
“He reacted badly, didn’t he?”
He should’ve expected the barrage of questions. “He took it well, but obviously it’s a lot for him to take in. He lives in the district, so I don’t want gossip to spread amongst the shifters before he’s had some time to let it sink in. He knows I’m Keeper of the Peace and how important that is in our community.”
“When do we get to meet him?” Alexandra asked.
“I don’t know. Like I said, he’s letting it sink in. I want to focus on our bond as mates before anything else.” Great, now he was saying the things he should’ve said to Joel this morning, but his own enthusiasm had gotten the best of him. “Anyway, that’s why I’ve been zoning out. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”
“Good luck with that,” Louis scoffed, then grinned. “Admit it, you want to fly off with him into the sunset right now.”
Yes! What an excellent suggestion!
“Don’t give my dragon ideas. It’s difficult enough sitting here with you as it is.”
“If you need to pull back from your Keeper duties for the next few weeks, we understand,” Theresa told him. “There’s no rush with the insect shifters.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t want their resentment to build. Nothing’s going to change. I’m still going to do my job.” He looked down at the agenda. They’d been checking in wi
th each council member to see if they had pressing matters to discuss, and Theresa had brought up the insect shifters. “Okay, Theresa, I’ll talk to the insect shifters. Louis, anything from the wolf shifters we need to know about?”
While the council was there to represent all animals, there were so many wolf shifters in the district that in practice, Louis was only really focused on them. “Uh, let me see…” He trailed off, scrolling on his laptop. “There’s a dispute between two neighbors, one a wolf shifter family and the other eagles, but I think we can settle that without your interference. Karen, I emailed you about that already.”
“Yeah, I’m with you. They can’t just build a fence that high without talking to their neighbors about it first,” Karen replied.
“Okay, good. Let’s see… there are a few wolf shifter-only events planned for the next month. People enjoyed your welcoming event a lot, and now I’ve got to tell them no, we can’t do our own for wolf shifters because that ruins the entire point of it.”
“Good!” Thomas smiled at him, glad Louis was doing the right thing without having to be told. “I’m glad they came round.”
“There are some visitors from out of town at the moment,” Louis told him. “It’s nothing important. From what I can tell, they wanted advice on handling drama in their small town and are leaving tomorrow.”
“Why did they come here for advice? Calling or emailing sounds a lot easier than traveling.”
Louis shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess some things are just easier to do in person. For all I know they wanted an excuse to come here anyway; I would if I lived in a small town. I bet that’s just boring fence disputes all day long.” He gestured dismissively at his laptop.
“Try not to say that to the Millers tomorrow,” Karen told him dryly.
“Why do they care so much about that fence anyway? I’ve seen it. It’s a nice fence.”
“I think it’s because most people like getting sunlight in their backyard,” she replied.