by Lynn Howard
Campbell’s heart was racing for a whole new reason now as she listened to Brax. She was unable to form any words, even to ask a question.
“Our friends know a little about what we’re doing. But it doesn’t matter. We know as a fact they’d back us one hundred percent. They’d never allow these rogues to change anything.” He then told her about a couple battles they’d fought over females who were mated to his friends. Told her how they’d fought to have the antiquated laws changed.
Dammit. More and more, she found herself wrapped around his finger.
No. That wasn’t the right analogy.
More and more, she found Brax burrowing into her heart.
“They tried to turn my sister into a Shifter, tried to force her into some kind of cult deal. And she’d died because some stupid asshole didn’t like the fact the women of their kind were finally considered equal.”
Brax took her hand again and squeezed it, the touch lending her strength and keeping her from getting lost in her thoughts.
Campbell looked at their joined hands, his hand a bit larger than hers. She should be repulsed by his touch. After all, it was his ‘species’ who’d killed Caren, who’d probably killed hundreds of other women.
But how many women had survived? How many were now living as captives? As slaves to a group of Neanderthals? And his group of people were the only ones other than herself she knew who were trying to end all of this.
But she wasn’t repulsed. She was comforted. And that strange connection between them seemed to solidify until she could physically feel her soul reaching for him. It was the oddest, yet best feeling she’d ever had toward a male.
“You’re so confusing,” she said.
“Yeah. You said that earlier.”
She had? She tried to pull up the moments between the time she took the pills and then after she ate. But it was hazy, as if she were trying to remember a dream.
“You said I confuse you because you shouldn’t like me. But you do.”
Oh shit. She’d admitted that to him? She could play it off. Tell him she only meant she no longer hated him. But he knew that. She’d already admitted she thought he was cute. What was the point of making shit up now?
“Yeah.” Okay. Not her smoothest.
“You like me? Or you like me?” he said, changing his voice as his charming smile slowly grew on his face.
“Is there a difference? Or was I supposed to change my voice?” she said, deepening her voice to imitate him.
Brax threw his head back and laughed.
Dammit. Even his laugh was sexy.
She’d gone from crippling sorrow to chuckling at him so quickly. He was so freaking easy to be around. As bad as her heart hurt mere moments ago, as much fear had put a choke hold on her, joking with him made her momentarily forget the rage and sorrow that had plagued her since last year.
“Thank you,” she said without thinking.
“For what?” he said, frowning with a smile.
“Just…thanks. My mom is the only one who knows how I live now. She’s the only one who knows what I do every night. And sometimes, I don’t tell her everything. It’s nice to not have to hide who and what I am.”
“What you are?” he said, his smile faltering but still lingering at the corners.
“An angry, vengeful, murderous bitch,” she deadpanned as she leaned her head back against the couch.
“You forgot smart, sexy, and beautiful,” Brax said.
When Campbell rolled her head to look at him, she expected him to have his usual sweet smile or even a teasing glint in his eye. Instead, he looked intense. A hint of that iridescent glow shined from his irises and he was no longer grinning.
He wasn’t kidding.
“Brax—”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I cared about you, Camp. There are things…things I don’t know how to explain, but…I want you in my life.”
“As a friend,” she whispered, unable to force her voice any louder. He shook his head. “ As more than a friend?” Another whisper. He nodded. “Brax—”
Once again, he cut her off. “I don’t expect you to feel the same way. Not right away. Just give me a chance. Let me prove to you I’m worth your time.”
Campbell’s lips parted but nothing came out. She had no idea what to say, no idea how to respond. She’d found herself attracted to him from minute one, even if she’d refused to acknowledge it the short few weeks ago. But could she allow herself to feel for him? To truly feel for him?
Yes. She could. She already did. She already felt something so deep for him, already felt herself attached to this man.
****
Brax’s heart was hammering behind his ribcage. Campbell’s lips parted and quivered as if she were trying to think of something to say. And he found himself praying to anyone listening that she wouldn’t push him away.
“Okay,” she whispered, but she looked unsure.
“I don’t want you to feel forced into anything. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. If you tell me to fuck off and never contact you again, I will. But I hope you won’t. I promise I’ll never try to change you. I won’t demand you sit at home and wait for me while I hunt the monsters. I would never demand you stop doing what you’re doing, although I hope you’ll at least wait until you’re healed,” he added at the end so she wouldn’t jump up and run for the door. “I only want to dote on you. I want to take care of you. Not,” he said, holding up his hand when she opened her mouth to say something, “that you can’t take care of yourself. But I want…Shit. I’m messing this up.”
“No, you’re not.” She nibbled on her bottom lip, drawing his attention to that mouth he’d fantasized about for days on end.
She didn’t say anything else for what felt like hours. More than likely only minutes, but each one stretched on painfully until Brax couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m not asking for an engagement or cubs or –”
“Cubs?” she asked, narrowing her eyes in confusion.
“Shit,” he muttered, shoving his hand through his hair to push it out of his face. “That’s what we call our kids. Well, feline Shifters call them cubs. But I promise they don’t come out all furry or anything. It’s more a term of endearment.”
“If we had a relationship and had kids, they’d be like you?” He nodded once, unsure of whether anything more would freak her out. She looked remarkably calm after having Brax lay it all out there the way he had. “They wouldn’t be human?”
“No. The Shifter gene is too strong. I’ve never heard of a human conceiving with a Shifter and giving birth to a human.”
“Does that happen often?”
“What?”
“Shifters and humans.”
He raised his shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know how many in total, but yeah, it happens. Nova, she’s one of my friends, her mom was a human and her dad was a wolf Shifter. He was a higher up on the local Shifter Council but stepped down after Nova gave birth to her daughter.”
Her lips pursed and it looked like she was chewing on the inside of her cheek. “It kind of sounds normal, but not.”
“Yeah. It’s normal, except for the Shifter thing. We have families, friends, even jobs.” Which he and the rest of the panthers would eventually have to get back to. They were almost out of money.
“You think I’ll ever meet your friends?” she asked, her brows raising.
“Absolutely. You’d love them. They’re hilarious. You might have heard of Nova already. She’s a romance writer. Part of what got her in trouble, actually.”
“How did writing books get her in trouble?” Campbell asked.
“She was writing Shifter romance…as a Shifter. And using her real name instead of a pen name. She could’ve been thrown in jail for that shit.”
“You have a jail for Shifters?” A smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
“Yep. Instead of regular court with a jury and all that, we have a Council. They’re judge, jury, and som
etimes executioner.”
Her dark brows dropped and her eyes narrowed again. “You execute your own people?”
“Not often. But if a Shifter goes feral or, like the dickwads we both hunt, they have to be put down. Our only goal in life is to live, to be happy, to find our mates and have families and die a ripe old age. We can’t do that if someone outs us to humans. And the shit the rogues are pulling could definitely out us.”
“That’s the second time you’ve used that word.”
“What?”
“Mates.”
“Yeah. I told you before that we call our…well, I guess significant others mates. The thing is, when a woman is forced into a pairing, she isn’t truly mated. Not really. Maybe by law, before that was all changed, but not really. Unless she finds her true mate, nothing changes.”
“What would change if she’s with her true mate?”
“Well…Do you really want to know all of this? It’s a lot.”
She nodded and lifted her hand to chew on her thumbnail.
With a huff of air, Brax turned to face Campbell. “When true mates are together, they…well, they complete this bond. It’s some kind of destiny thing that I don’t fully understand, as most Shifters don’t. We just know what happens, not how it happens. But, a Shifter…bites his mate. And then something happens to her blood. There’s a change to the scent. Any male that comes close enough to pick up her scent would smell the change, would know she was off limits, know she was claimed.”
“But you said a bite could change me,” she said, pulling her thumb out of her mouth.
“It could. I don’t know of any humans who’ve been marked by their mates. So there’s no change. But, if we were to complete the bond, although I don’t know how we could fully do that with you being human, you’d—”
“Wait, stop. Hold on a second. Are you trying to say we’re true mates? Not just a crush or something.” She sat forward and stared at Brax with wide eyes.
Shiiiit. He had, hadn’t he? He’d opened his big fucking mouth and said what he’d been trying to hide from her.
Well. He wasn’t technically trying to hide it; he’d hoped that conversation would come later, like when she was madly in love with him and agreed to spend the rest of her life with him. He hadn’t come out and said those exact words, yet she’d deduced the information on her own.
What would she think if she knew the second she agreed to complete the mating bond, his friends would barely talk to her? And they sure as fuck wouldn’t touch her unless she needed help.
Yet another conversation he was worried would scare her off.
Campbell’s brows lowered and she crossed her arms. Of course, the movement brought his attention to her thin tank top. His dick twitched in his jeans.
Yanking his gaze up before he pissed her off further, he sighed heavily and leaned away a little. He might be a big, bad Shifter, but he didn’t hit women, even in self-defense. He was a little concerned she’d slam her fist against his mouth when he told her everything.
And he was going to tell her everything. How he figured he could get away with half-truths and hiding monumental shit, like the fact he was convinced she was his true mate, he didn’t know.
“Fine,” he said, holding his hands up. Then considered cupping them over his junk in case she decided to use his balls instead of his face to release the anger she was sure to have when he told her the universe had chosen Campbell to be his. That they were fated, regardless of what either of them wanted. Not that he could’ve pictured a more perfect mate for himself. “Yes. I believe you’re my true mate.”
“So you guys don’t fall in love,” she said. And maybe he was grasping at straws, but she sure as hell sounded disappointed. But at least she hadn’t shut down and shut him out or demanded he leave her life forever.
“We do. But in the beginning, there’s always this…”
“Connection?” she offered.
“Yeah. It’s kind of like…” Shit. How the hell could he explain it?
“Like two magnets.” Her voice was soft and there was a different expression on her face than a moment ago. It wasn’t curiosity or confusion. In fact, it looked a whole lot like understanding and relief. But relief from what?
“Exactly. I don’t know how or why it happens. But, as far as I know, it only happens once for each Shifter. Possibly twice if they’re widowed.”
“You guys aren’t immortal?”
“You literally watched four Shifters die last night.”
“I mean, you don’t live a hundred years or whatever longer than a human,” she said as if that was any better than the immortality thing. How much cooler would that have been to have a hundred or more years with Campbell in his arms.
Although, she still wasn’t in his arms. Not yet. And he wouldn’t make the first move. Couldn’t. It went against everything he believed.
“No. Normal life span. The only difference between us and humans is the animal living inside our skin. That’s it. You cut us, we bleed. You shoot us in the head, we die. You break our hearts, we suffer.”
He made sure to add that last part for her benefit. He should’ve told her the truth about that part, too. If a Shifter wasn’t able to be with their mate, they tended to slowly go insane until they were nearly feral. It rarely happened, but it did happen.
“How do you know when you’ve found your mate?” Her voice was still soft. And it might be wishful thinking, but it looked like she’d leaned closer by a few inches.
Shaking his head slowly, he shrugged again. “I don’t know how to explain it. Usually, our animal claims our mate before we do. And, no matter how hard we fight against it, that pull won’t let up. It’s more than uncomfortable.”
She nodded in understanding.
“But with you –”
“I knew it,” she whispered and a small smile slowly grew on her face. That small smile widened into a grin. “I’m not going crazy. You felt it, too.”
“You feel the pull?”
“I couldn’t figure out what it was about you. I mean, don’t get me wrong – you’re hot and all, but I’ve had hot boyfriends before.”
Campbell was human. Could she possibly feel it as strongly as his kind? He wasn’t even aware humans felt it at all. He’d always assumed it was simple attraction and love that brought Shifters and humans together in the past.
Brax needed to call Tristan from the Big River Pack. He hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone else about this, mainly because he felt like a teenager with his first crush. But the wolf was the only person in his life who had mated with a human. Even if Peyton had been turned against her will, she’d started out the same as Campbell. The two wolves could shed some light on this, let him know whether or not Peyton felt the same thing Tristan did in the beginning.
“This doesn’t freak you out?”
“Of course, it does,” Campbell said, leaning away from him and brushing at imaginary lint on the blanket covering her legs. “It’s nice to know I’m not losing it, though. I was getting worried a few too many bumps on my head had caused some kind of aneurism or something.”
Anger, hot and fast, burned through his veins at the thought of anyone hurting Campbell. He’d always been protective of females; that would never change. But with Campbell, he wanted to burn the world down to find every single fucker who’d hurt her. And if they were already dead, he’d dig up their corpses and piss on their remains.
“You’ve been hurt a lot?”
“It tends to happen. Figure I’ve been doing this for close to a year, Brax. You going to tell me you’ve never gotten hit or scratched or bit or whatever when you were out there chasing down the bad guys?”
Well. Yeah. He’d been hurt more times than he could count over the past two years. He was also a Shifter and healed way faster than Campbell. He could be killed, but it was a lot harder than it would be for her. It was rare for a Shifter to bleed out because of the increased healing rate. Not for Campbell. A slash or bite to the righ
t place and she’d fade to nothing within minutes.
“Not going to answer? I’m not stupid. I’ve seen the scars on your arms.”
“Yeah. I’ve been hurt a few times. I’m not fully human, though, Camp. I heal. Fast. You don’t.” He glanced down at her leg covered by the blanket. “That? The gashes on your leg? They’d be healed on me already. You’ve got at least a few more days before you’re out of the woods. Until you’re no longer at risk of being turned and your leg is no longer too painful to walk on.”
Campbell’s eyes widened and her mouth popped open. “I thought it was fine if I kept it clean.”
“It should be. But even we don’t know how all this works. Not like we have scientists who can study us and explain it all.”
With a shake of her head, Campbell released a long breath through pursed lips. “This is a lot.”
“I know.”
“Do I have a choice in any of it?”
Brax’s heart dropped. Not exactly what he’d hoped to hear from her mouth. “Yes. You do. You’ll feel discomfort for a while, but you have a choice.”
“But you don’t,” she said.
Shaking his head slowly, Brax decided to keep the whole going insane if he didn’t have her thing to himself for now. He wanted her to want him organically. He didn’t want her to be with him because she worried he’d turn into a monster and have to be put down.
“If…if I said I was willing to try, then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to get married or whatever it is you do to be a mate. To complete the bond. And I definitely don’t want you to bite me. But I can’t deny my attraction to you, nor the pull. I’ve felt it from day one. I’ve spent the last year thinking Shifters were evil, that you all have to be destroyed. It feels almost wrong to admit I’ve been fantasizing about you.”