They lay quietly for a while, him holding her close, her running her fingers lightly down his arm, stroking the skin. Finally she said breathlessly, “Wow.”
“Yeah.” That was an understatement.
She said, “Um, I forgot to ask you if Alexander’s guys were still after us. I take it they’re not?”
Jace smiled, fingers smoothing her hair. “I would have mentioned it.”
“Mmm.” She stirred in his arms. “Not to spoil the moment, but we need to figure out what to do next. I’m due in Idaho to meet Grizzly tonight, and we have no transportation. And Alex’s men keep finding us.”
“I know,” Jace said. Emma sat up, and he immediately felt cold. He wondered what she was feeling, if anything—or if to her, this was just amazing, adrenalin-fueled sex. He tried to focus on the immediate problems, but it was hard with a naked Emma sitting right in front of him.
“We should probably get dressed,” he made himself say.
Hurt flashed across her face. That lightened his heart—maybe she did feel something for him. He leaned in and kissed her temple. “I don’t want to,” he said. “But I can’t think with you all naked and sexy right in front of me.”
She shook her head. “Men,” she said. But she was smiling.
He dug his jeans out of Emma’s bag and put them on, taking his phone out of the pocket while she was gathering up her clothes. He took it to the mouth of the cave, and was relieved to find out he had a signal. “Bars,” he said, holding up the phone. “It’s time to call in the cavalry.”
Emma nodded. Jace dialed Jesse, who picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, bro,” he said, sounding relieved. “Is that you this time?”
“Yeah,” Jace said. “Got my phone back and gave the perpetrator what she deserved.” He winked at Emma, who paused with her arms halfway inside her shirt sleeves to roll her eyes at him.
“We were getting worried,” Jesse said. “Is everything okay?”
“Not exactly,” Jace said. He gave Jesse the shortest possible version of what was going on. Just the facts—not his feelings about Emma or his reasons for helping her. He was pretty sure Jesse got that part without him having to say it.
“Shit,” Jesse said, when he finished. “Okay, hang tight, bro—I’ll start getting the pack together. We’ll be down there ASAP.”
“Make sure you’re armed,” Jace said. “These guys have military-grade weapons and training. Teeth and claws may not be enough.”
“Gotcha,” Jesse said. “I’ll organize it. Hold on a sec.”
Jace hit the speaker button and finished getting dressed while he waited for Jesse to come back on. When he did, he said, “I have your general location from the phone signal. Are you safe there, or will you be moving?”
Jace had already thought about that. “I think it’s better if we stay,” he said. “I bought us some time taking out that last team. If they’re sending anyone else, they won’t be able to get them here for a while. We’re holed up in a cave, so we have a defensible location. We’re safer here than out in the open.”
“Copy that,” Jesse said. Jace gave him details on how to find the cave. “We’ll be there in a few hours.”
“One more thing before you go,” Jace said. He turned to Emma. “I’m assuming you’re dragging Grant’s laptop around because you haven’t had the chance to make a copy of the data?”
Emma nodded. “I had the chance to grab the computer and I took it. I haven’t been in a position to copy anything—I don’t have a cloud account that will hold that much data.”
Jesse responded immediately, understanding what Jace was getting at. “We do,” he said. “I can give you the passwords. But the only way to upload the data from where you are would be to use your phone as a wireless hotspot. That’s probably gonna suck your phone battery dry.”
Emma frowned. “That’s a big risk. If anything goes wrong, or we have to move, they won’t be able to find us.”
Jace crouched by the phone, thinking. “I know,” he said. “But if that laptop gets destroyed, this will all have been for nothing.”
Emma bit her lip. “You’re right,” she said. “Too many people have gone through too much for this data. And Alexander has to be stopped. If anything happens to us…”
Jace knew what she was saying. If anything happened to them, Jesse could still take the data to the FBI.
He touched her hand gently. “Nothing’s going to happen to us,” he murmured. She looked into his eyes a moment, then nodded.
“Okay, Jess,” he said. “Set us up.”
Jesse ran them through the procedure, and Jace got the wireless hotspot going and set the computer up to upload the data. When he was sure it was transferring, he said, “Okay. Signing off now—don’t want to waste any more battery.”
On the other end, Jesse started to say something, and then he was interrupted by a voice in the background. “Hey, is that Jace? Is he bringing his mate back here? From what Amerind says, they’ve been lighting up the radar—”
Jace shut his eyes. Rafe.
“Shut up, asshole,” Jesse was saying.
“But it’s huge, man! The first alpha/human mating bond—”
Jace hit the button and cut the call.
“Mating bond?” Emma was slowly sliding away from him, gathering her feet under her. “What did he mean by a mating bond?”
Jace instinctively rose to a crouch. “Don’t run,” he said, alpha authority cracking in his voice.
Her eyes widened, and she edged away again.
Oh, shit. He couldn’t go ordering her around like that. He softened his voice. “Please,” he said.
She stilled, her eyes not leaving his face. “Okay,” she said. “Explain.”
Jace sank out of his crouch onto the floor. Maybe it would help her not freak out if he didn’t look like he was going to lunge at her like a wild animal any second. “Fucking Rafe,” he muttered.
“At least he’s honest,” Emma said. “Now you just need to tell me what the hell he was talking about.”
Jace blew out a huge sigh and ran his hand through his hair. He was never going to be able to explain this to her. This was going to go so, so wrong…
He closed his eyes and went for it.
“The pack thinks you’re my fated mate.”
Emma scooted backward another foot. “Excuse me?” she squeaked.
At least she hadn’t screamed. Or laughed. And she wasn’t running—yet.
“You. Me. Magically bonded together.” He paused, then said it again. “My mate.”
Chapter 19
His mate?
“That’s what I thought you said.” She realized she was backing up again. “What the hell does that even mean?” she asked. “Like, your soul mate? Or the woman your wolf wants to fuck? Or someone to have your babies? Holy shit. Do wolf shifters even have babies? Or do they have, like, pups or something?”
“You’re freaking out,” Jace said. “Try not to freak out, okay?”
Damn right she was freaking out. She stared at him. “How am I not supposed to freak out? First I find out the guy I slept with last night is a wolf. A real, actual wolf. With fur and everything. I did pretty good with that, by the way. No screaming or anything. But now we’re supposed to have some werewolf bond? Why do they even think that?”
He was silent for a minute, obviously trying to find a way to explain. Then he took a deep breath and began. “Shifters have this thing,” he said. “It’s kind of like what humans call soulmates, I guess. There’s one person you’re fated to be with—a life mate. We call them ‘true mates’ or ‘fated mates.’ Not every shifter has one—or, at least, not everybody goes looking for one. The bond is—kind of intense. And once the bond is fully invoked, it can’t be broken by anything.”
Emma tried to laugh. Epic fail. “So you guys take the whole ‘till death do us part’ thing really seriously.”
Jace looked at her, his gaze golden and unfathomable. “Some people say the b
ond lasts even beyond death.”
Whoa. Emma said carefully, “But soulmates is just an idea—something people want to believe is true. This sounds more…definite…than that.”
Jace nodded. “Yeah. For shifters, it’s a real, tangible thing. A magical connection—”
“Magical?” she said. “You mean that in the figurative sense, right? Like, ‘feels like magic…’”
Jace shook his head. “It’s physical, emotional, energetic—bonded mates can transfer energy to each other, help heal each other, make each other stronger. And that power extends to the pack, bonding every wolf in it to every other wolf, and to the territory itself. Without it, the pack can’t survive.”
Emma couldn’t imagine what that must be like. She liked people and parties, but inside she’d always been a loner, drifting from place to place, never putting down roots. Of all the people to bond to a pack, she was the least likely.
Not to mention that she wasn’t a shifter.
“I’m human,” she said. “How could I be your mate? Why would Rafe and the others even want me to be?”
Jace sighed, running both hands through his hair. “Because they’re desperate, okay?” he said. “We’re all desperate. If I don’t find a mate soon…” He picked up a stick from the pile of firewood and jammed the end into the ground.
Emma could feel the anger in him, the frustration—and the longing. It was like his emotions had seeped into her when they made love, and she felt what he felt. This was really desperate to him. It was tearing him apart inside.
That made her less freaked out. “If you don’t find a mate, what happens?” she prompted, more gently.
Jace jammed the stick into the rocky ground again. “We lose our territory,” he said. His voice was thick with emotion. “You don’t—you can’t understand what that’s like for a wolf pack.” He rose to his feet in one lithe motion and began pacing, his hands linked around the back of his neck, as if his emotion were so strong he had to hold it in.
“Shifter wolves are bonded to their territory,” he said. “It’s like…” he looked off into the distance, and she wondered what he was seeing. “It’s almost like the land is alive, and it strengthens us and protects us. For a pack to lose its territory—it’s like losing a limb. Part of you is always missing, and you can function without it, mostly, but the loss never stops hurting.”
Emma’s chest hurt with the pain he was feeling. “You sound like you know that from experience,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said softly. She waited for him to go on, but he was silent, still with that faraway look in his eyes. Finally, just when she thought he wasn’t going to speak, he said, “When I was just a kid, my pack lost our territory. Most of the pack were killed—including my parents. The rest of us were scattered, with nowhere to go and nothing to call our own. I was sixteen.”
Emma winced. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She wanted to reach out to him, but he was like a wounded animal that flinched away from any touch. “That must have been horrible.”
He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, and leaned against the wall. “Rafe and Jesse and I got separated from the other survivors. We were always like brothers, growing up, but then there were just the three of us. We were everything to each other,” he said. “All we could think about was finding a territory, someplace we could belong. Having a real pack again.”
He looked down at his hands, which were calloused and scarred. Emma couldn’t imagine what kind of experience would leave scars on someone who could heal so fast.
He went on, “We worked our assess off for ten years—ten years—doing the highest paid work we could get without skills or education. Oil rigs, lumber camps, mining—you name it.” He gave a hard, mirthless laugh. “People talk about blood, sweat and tears like they’re a metaphor, but ours were real. Every one of us bled for that land.”
He fell silent, then went on. “We finally scraped together the money to buy Silverlake Mountain and start bringing our pack home. But according to wolf shifter laws, we only get three years to fully claim the territory. The alpha has to find his true mate, and they have to bond. And then they bond to the land, and to the pack.” He raised his eyes to her. “If they don’t, the territorial boundary magic breaks down. If another wolf pack can take the territory, the Council will let them have it. And Silverlake is prime wolf territory.”
Emma was shocked. “Seriously?” she said. “They can just give away your home? After you did all that to earn it?”
“They can,” he said. “And they will.”
He gazed at her, the gold coming out in his eyes again. “I’m the alpha wolf,” Jace said. “Rafe and Jesse can’t help me this time. I’m the only one who can save our pack. And I’m running out of time.”
Emma’s heart ached for him. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have so much responsibility. But still…she couldn’t possibly be his mate. That was crazy.
“Exactly how much time do you have?” she asked.
“About two months,” Jace said. He furrowed his brow, as if doing math in his head. “Well, to be exact, seven weeks and three days.”
Say what? She stared at him. “Seven weeks to find a true love forever and ever mate? No wonder you’re all desperate enough to latch onto a human. No offense, but don’t you think you should have started sooner?”
“I started two years ago,” Jace snapped, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “I’ve been all over the western fucking United States. I’ve courted two dozen women, sweet-talked their alphas, and given more sales pitches about Silverlake Mountain than I care to think about.”
A lightbulb went off in Emma’s head. “The list,” she breathed. “That’s what that notebook was? Your potential mates?” She shook her head. “Wow. You sure do your homework. You had everything but their bra sizes in there.”
Jace flushed red all the way up to the roots of his hair. “This is important,” he muttered. “And the bond doesn’t work right if you don’t really—” He broke off, still looking embarrassed. “If you don’t really love each other. Care for each other. If I’m going to do this, take someone as a mate, I want to make her happy.”
I want to make her happy. Such simple words, but they tore something loose in Emma’s chest, making her want to cry. She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “So then…why didn’t any of those wolf girls marry you?” she asked. It was hard to believe.
Jace shot her a look, and she said, “Sorry. I just meant…well, look at you. You’re gorgeous and hot and you make a great knight in shining armor.” She thought again of the lists in his notebook. Favorite flowers. Favorite foods. The way they liked their coffee. No guy she’d ever dated had gone to that much trouble to learn about her. “Do you snore like a chainsaw?” she asked. “Pick your nose in public? Drink fruity girly drinks and sing off-key show tunes? Or what?”
That got her a reluctant half-smile. “Nothing like that,” Jace said. He made a wry face. “My wolf rejected all of them.”
“Oh,” Emma said. She cocked her head, trying to understand. “It can do that? It’s like, a separate thing from you?”
“Yeah. Well, no.” He sighed. “It’s a part of me, but in a way it’s separate, too. It’s hard to explain.”
Emma stared at him, trying to wrap her head around this whole thing. He’d said that his wolf had rejected these other women. And yet, his pack seemed to think that Emma was his mate. That she’d been accepted.
She stood up and moved closer to Jace. Even from three feet away, she could feel the heat of his body. That magnetic pull. The longing inside him—and its echo inside her own chest.
She could feel what he felt. Like magic.
This was crazy.
She looked up at him, wanting to see into the depth of his soul. Wanting to understand who he was. “Your wolf,” she said. “What does it say about me?”
Jace was looking down at his hands. He said, “Aside from the fact that you smell like heaven and make us wa
nt to howl in the moonlight?”
She did? That was kind of sexy. But she wanted more. “Besides that,” she said.
He raised his eyes to hers, and they were glittering gold. “It says you’re the one we’ve been waiting for. Our true mate. This whole thing was the damn wolf’s idea.”
Emma moved closer, close enough to touch him. Jace went still, barely breathing. She tapped him lightly on his chest with her knuckle. “Hey in there,” she said, talking to his breastbone. “Mr. Wolf. I just want you to know you’re out of your furry mind.”
Jace caught her face in his hands, cradling it gently. “Maybe not,” he said. Emma stared into those hot golden eyes, almost unable to breathe. He went on, “The first time I saw you, I felt something. Something I’ve never felt before. And when we made love…” He broke off.
Emma stared up at him. Slowly, she slid her palms up his chest. She could sense the wolf inside him. It called to her. She whispered, “I thought you said it was the wolf that wanted me. Not you.”
Jace didn’t answer. He just dipped his head and kissed her.
Heat ran through her like molten lava as soon as their lips met. She wanted him to taste every part of her, coax the fire out of her, excite her and comfort her and protect her.
He slid his lips gently over hers, soft kisses like sipping fine whiskey. She tilted her head up to his, and a soft sigh escaped her lips. She melted against him, pressing against the hardness of his chest, parting her lips and sliding her tongue across his bottom lip with the softest of touches. He groaned and slid his arms around her, burying his fingers in her hair, and deepened the kiss, tangling his tongue with hers. That warm feeling in her chest expanded and all her nerve endings sizzled with electricity.
She pulled slightly away, and he bent his head, touching his forehead to hers. “Do you feel that?” he whispered.
She didn’t want to feel it. It was too intense, too powerful. “Like little lightning bolts,” she said. “When I’m near you, I feel like there’s a magnet inside me, pulling me toward you whether I like it or not. And my chest feels weird—like there’s a hole in it that’s all filled up with your emotions. And when you hold me it feels like drowning in warm caramel, and when you let go of me it feels cold. And—and lonely…”
Fugitive Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 1) Page 10