by Jade Alters
I see she’s in your thoughts a lot.
Ah, shut up. Sir.
I tossed my head as we ran, letting out a growling ripple of laughter from my lion’s throat. Stone only called me Sir on a couple of rare occasions — and embarrassment was one of them. Clearly, accidentally transmitting Jessica’s face to me as we communicated had him feeling a little awkward, but he didn’t have to.
Not least because if I didn’t have good self-control, I’d be doing the exact same thing to him.
We might have to cut this short if we catch sight of anything, but… would it surprise you to hear that she’s caught my eye too?
She has?
I heard the thunder of Stone’s paws pick up behind me, and slowed so that he could pull alongside. I had never been good at reading people, either in this form or in our human ones, but Stone had a knack for it. Whatever he saw in my dark lion’s eyes, it must have convinced him that I wasn’t joking.
Ever since we’d come here with Jessica, I’d suspected that something unusual was going on. I could feel my own pulse rising around her, and that hormonal shift. She was beautiful, of course, and the light behind her eyes gave her an air of easy confidence and happiness. When I looked at her, I saw a healthy, responsible and charming woman that spoke to every part of me — my lion included.
If the others were thinking the same thing… well. She might just be a myth come to life. Normally I’d dismiss the very idea of the one true mate, as I had done for years, but it wasn’t so easy to do that with Jess. The very sight of her made me believe in the possibility. If anybody could be that special person — for anyone, but our pride in particular — it’d be her.
Really, though? Stone pressed again. I don’t want to cause a problem with us.
It’s not a problem, I said. I hadn’t realized how true this was until this very moment. The weight of the fact came to rest on my back slowly, and I slowed to walk beside Stone, paws deliberate and heavy on the ground. This was a good thing, and the way I could feel my lion’s heart throbbing in my chest only emphasized that — but it was pretty seismic.
Stone turned his head to face me, his dark eyes meeting mine. Are you sure, Blake? You know I’d never—
I think she may be our One Mate.
We both stopped. Stone’s eyes rooted on mine, a flash of human depth in his expression. If he were with anybody else, he might have expected this to be a joke, but I wasn’t really the joking kind. Not about things like this. I saw the realization wash over him, as it had just washed over me a couple of seconds ago.
He shifted, and I saw the same look of bemusement and confusion on his human form’s face. I shifted to join him, sitting down on the warm dusty ground.
“If that’s true, then…” Stone trailed off, shaking his head down at the ground. “I can’t believe it. I was never even convinced they existed. I’m not sure I’m convinced even now.”
“I’m not jealous of your attraction to her,” I reasoned. “Or the thought of her being attracted to you. Considering how long we’ve known her and how little time we’ve spent together, I’d say it’s unusual to be so attracted to her.”
“I guess so.” Stone ruffled a hand through his hair, eyes unfocused. “Have you spoken to the others about it?”
“Not yet,” I admitted. “It only crossed my mind in passing before, but I’ve seen them looking at her too and suspected it. Feeling her cross your mind so much with nothing else to distract me just… provided me with the evidence I needed.”
“Wow.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, feeling the wind lift around us. If our lion noses hadn’t been clear of the scent of humans around us, then it probably wouldn’t be safe to do this — but with the area around us so desolate and empty, and with shrubs and trees surrounding us for cover, it was a harmless spot to recover from this emotional earthquake.
“She’s going to need to know,” said Stone, after a few moments. “Everything.”
I nodded, staring off into the distance. “We’ll talk about it. All four of us.”
“It’s going to scare the shit out of her.” His brow was furrowed with concern.
“No,” I said, rolling my shoulders back and preparing to shift again. “No, it shouldn’t. Not if she’s the One.”
Stone
It was hard work keeping my eyes off her. Now that I knew what Jess was to me, and to all of us, it was even harder than before to contain myself. Only a few feet from me she was humming away, absent-minded, and cleaning the kitchen counter tops. If I stood up and walked over to her and asked, she’d probably give me a hug; she was a tactile person, and I could already imagine pressing up against her, my nose filling with the scent of her berry-fresh shampoo and the smooth silk of her skin.
I swallowed, staring down at the table as she moved to another counter, afraid that she’d speak to me. Right now, I wasn’t confident I could speak without making a damn fool out of myself. How could I, knowing that I was looking at the woman I was destined to be with? Knowing that one day she’d bear our children, and create the kind of family most lions could only picture in their dreams?
“I don’t know how you all do it.”
I looked up, attention snatched by the sound of her voice. As I tried to focus on not speaking to her, it was almost like I’d forgotten she could speak to me.
I blinked, a smile tugging onto my lips instinctively. She just had that effect on me.
“Do what?” I asked.
“All these shifts,” she said, nodding towards the bedroom. “You seem to sleep and wake up at different times every day.”
“It’s either that or two of us don’t see the sun for a couple of months,” I pointed out. “And while I’m sure Preston would love that, I-”
A crash outside cut me off. Blake was already climbing to his feet and heading to the window, gesturing to me with one hand. He didn’t need to ask me twice — and despite the vagueness of the gesture, I knew exactly what he meant.
“Jess, get down behind the counter.”
“What…?”
I stepped to her side, looking over Blake’s shoulder through the window. I couldn’t see anything outside. Judging by the way Blake grimaced and moved to the door, neither could he. I touched Jess’s shoulder gently, guiding her down. Any other time, this would have been contact I’d have fixated on, but right now we didn’t have time.
“Keep down, okay? We don’t know what that was.”
I followed Blake outside, eyes narrowed as I stared out to the line of trees nearby. Blake had already shifted and seemed to have scented something. His eyes were trained directly ahead, and I could hear the beginnings of a growl rippling through his throat.
Get Jess below ground. Wake the others. We have some unfriendly visitors.
On it, I confirmed in my head. If there were enemies around, I didn’t intend to give anything away out loud.
As soon as I was back inside, I closed the door behind me and waved Jess over. “Keep low,” I said, lifting the rug to reveal the entrance to the basement below — our safe room. “I don’t know who’s out there, or how many. Grab my sweater from the couch; it’ll be cold down there. I’m going to get the others.”
Walking away from her was hard. I could see the tremors in her hands and the fear and uncertainty in her eyes — but I knew the best thing I could do to keep her safe was to follow Blake’s instructions so we could neutralize the threat. Staying with her wouldn’t do that.
Still, it didn’t make it any easier to leave her behind. I gritted my teeth, and pushed into Hale and Preston’s room.
“Hat up, guys. We’ve got company.”
Jessica
Of course, I knew the North boys were working on something dangerous, in a vague sense. I understood that it was risky — but to actually have the fight come to our little cabin like this was imminent and frightening. I could no longer kid myself that I was completely safe here, even if it was obvious that the boys had every intention of prot
ecting me.
I didn’t really like the idea of being protected, normally. I wasn’t the type to wait for a knight in shining armor if I could take care of business myself. Woe betide the old-fashioned creep at the grocery store who assumed I couldn’t carry my own bags out to the car — but this? This was way beyond my scope. It was beyond the scope of any civilian. Judging by the way the boys were reacting, they hadn’t exactly been expecting it either.
Down in the basement by myself, I pulled Stone’s sweater tighter around my shoulders. He was right. It was chilly down here, but I had a feeling that most of my shivering had to do with something else entirely. Were they safe out there?
Less pressing, was I safe down here?
Hearing nothing from the cabin above, I could do nothing but wait. My mind ran over with thoughts of the worst-case scenarios, imagining the smirking faces of the enemy peering down at me from above. Or maybe they wouldn’t know I was here and would burn down the cabin around me — either consigning me to suffocation, or to dying of thirst in the wilderness as I tried to seek out help.
I couldn’t guess how much time had passed when the hatch at the top of the basement steps finally opened. Knees tucked up to my chest, I craned my neck to look up, suddenly assaulted by the thought that the attackers had won.
Instead, Blake’s handsome face looked down at me, somehow calm despite the sweat on his brow and the mud on his clothes.
“All safe,” he said, barely out of breath. “You can come on up now.”
“Are you all okay?” I asked as I climbed to my feet, my legs strangely unsteady as I made my way up. I felt so childish and weak. So delicate. “I couldn’t hear anything down here.”
“Everyone’s fine,” he promised. “I’m sorry we had to leave you by yourself down there. Just a precaution, you understand, but… we couldn’t have risked you getting hurt up here.”
“Did they reach the cabin?”
“No,” he said, holding out a hand as I came within reach. “Not even close.”
Still unsteady, I relented and took it. Even just the contact with his skin comforted me; I could feel his calming influence flowing through me like firelight warmth after walking in the snow. Now my heart was pounding for an entirely different reason than fear.
That said, fear still remained. “But they know where we are…?”
“Yes. But they won’t come back. I don’t want you going outside any time soon, but… they will not come back.”
Instinctively, I wanted to ask how he knew that. They were the enemy, after all. Surely, they’d stop at nothing to wipe out the threat that the North boys posed — and me, by association, if they ever found out I existed? Maybe they’d been spying on us for a while, and already knew. Even as logic assailed me with all those worries, my mouth failed to follow suit. There was so much confidence and certainty in Blake’s eyes that some deeper part of me just chose to believe him.
I realized that we were still holding hands, even as I stood at the top of the stairs. Around me, the others were coming down from the force of the attack. Stone was cleaning up a nasty-looking scrape on one of Hale’s arms, not without their usual playful banter.
Blake squeezed my hand, drawing my eyes back to him. I felt my cheeks flush.
“It’s okay, Jessica. I promise. If I believed it wasn’t safe for you to be here, I’d take you straight home. Trust me.”
“I do.”
And though I’d only known him for a while, and though my instincts screamed that it was crazy to stay here, on a deeper level it was true. I did trust Blake. I trusted him enough that his hand in mine, solid and sensible and careful, was enough to soothe away the blindness and terror of that stretch of lonely time in the dark.
Blake
When I woke up in the middle of the night, it wasn’t too unusual. There was a lot on my mind, and I didn’t need much rest to get by. What was unusual was the sensation I had of discomfort. That there was something else I had to do before I went back to sleep.
I frowned and swung my feet out of bed. The air still carried a light scent of iron-rich blood. Ordinary human noses were not so sensitive, but it still felt wrong to keep Jessica in such a violent environment — safe though it was. I made my way out of the room, closing the door quietly behind me so as not to disturb Stone. I wasn’t even sure what I was heading out to do before I caught sight of her.
Jessica was standing at the end of the corridor, leaning on the sill to look out of the window into the darkness. From the light glow of the candle beside her, I could make out the shape of the torn bodies of our attackers in the yard — left deliberately, to discourage any further attempts.
“Is that them, out there?” she asked, voice soft and quiet.
I was surprised that she’d noticed me. Even more so that she didn’t sound openly horrified at the thought of it. Instead, she sounded numb. Distant.
“It is,” I confirmed. Only then did she look over her shoulder to take me in, the thin straps of her night dress not offering much protection against the nighttime cold. I could see the skin on the back of her neck raising and resisted the urge to touch her — to warm her up with my shifter’s higher body temperature. Instead, I kept my distance. Let her keep her space as she turned back to face the dark.
“It looks like a bobcat got to them or something,” she noted. “Maybe something even bigger. You sure it’s okay to leave them out there?”
“There’s nothing that can get inside,” I assured her. She picked up the candle, lingering a few more seconds before she looked my way. “I promise. You’re safe here.”
“It’s you boys I’m worried about,” she said. “I didn’t know there was such dangerous wildlife out here.”
The knowledge that I’d have to tell her the truth about our nature swelled up in me, but this wasn’t the time. Stone and I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Hale and Preston about it all yet.
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “What about you? You okay? Can’t sleep?”
“That’s a lot of questions.”
She smiled at me, and I felt my built-in stiffness begin to ease away. I didn’t spend much time with Jess alone, and doing so now only made me more certain that she was our one mate. I could practically feel my lion calling out to her from inside me, lifted up by the sight of her smile.
“I’m fine,” she answered, after she saw me smile back. “I mean… I’m not. It was scary being down there. Imagining what might be happening to all of you. It shook me, but I’ll be okay.”
“Probably best not to look outside in the light,” I suggested. “It’s a mess out there.”
“Think I’d have been standing at this window so long if I was squeamish?”
Jessica had a point, but it only raised another question. “How long have you been here?”
She sighed. “Too long. I meant to get a drink, but I just got… stuck, I guess.”
I tipped my head towards the kitchen. “C’mon. Go have a seat in there. I’ll make you something.”
“I can get myself a glass of water,” she insisted, bumping her elbow into mine as she passed me. Her eyes caught on my bare torso, her playful smile melting into something a little less guarded — a little less measured. Clearly, she liked what she saw; it encouraged me to meet her gaze, and skim my eyes over her body too.
“I’m sure you can,” I said, delayed. “But let me do this for you. You just… rest.”
Whether she was actually convinced or just knew I wouldn’t give up the fight, Jessica relented and made her way to the couch, peering over the stiff back cushions to watch me fill the glass. Even in the low light, her blonde hair still shone, and there was an otherwordly glow to her skin.
No doubt about it. She was my mate. It didn’t surprise me that the others felt this way too.
“Sorry,” she said, sinking back behind the cushions a little as I caught her looking.
“What are you sorry for?”
I made my way over, and took the seat beside Jess
ica on the couch as I handed her the water. She seemed almost hesitant — not afraid of me, but not quite comfortable with me either. I shifted away, just a fraction, but she leaned right in to make up the gap.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “You’re just kind of intimidating, I guess.”
She hadn’t taken a drink yet. The condensation formed against the glass, and her eyes remained focused on mine. I tried to soften my smile, leaning back against the back of the couch.
“I don’t try to be.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s just a natural thing. Hale is the same way.”
“Not the others?”
She gave me an awkward smile, hiding behind the glass. She must have been paying attention to all of us. That was a good sign. “Not in the same way, no. Stone feels like… I don’t know. He’s more approachable, somehow. And Preston is just… Preston.”
“He’s quiet, huh? Soft.”
“To a point.”
Jessica angled herself towards me a little more. Did she even know she was doing it? I turned too, elbow perched on the back of the couch to hold up my head. She was only a foot or two away from me.
“Well, I’m sorry for being unapproachable.”
“It’s not that,” she insisted, cheeks blushing up. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
I hummed, watching as she finally remembered the glass of water was for drinking instead of hiding behind, and the way her full lips pressed against the rim as she drank. “I guess I can be a little over-serious, though.”
“You just have a lot of responsibility.”
“We all do, really,” I said, not wanting to take credit away from the rest of my pride. “But yeah, I do. I’m glad you understand. I don’t want to be unfriendly to you.”
“I certainly wouldn’t say that.”
My eyes drifted down to her upturned palm, sliding across the couch cushion towards me. Unthinking, I took it, and felt the warmth of her hand in mine — the spark of attraction that flew between us. I rested my thumb on her wrist, touch light enough to feel the rhythm of her pulse as it lifted and quickened.