by Anna Santos
“Annabel, I’m not kidding!” I matched her serious tone with a bit of annoyance. I should’ve been the one feeling offended for being rejected.
“Shit!”
I opened my mouth with surprise. Okay, that wasn’t the kind of expression I expected to hear from her in reaction to “I love you.” I was upset now. “I say I love you and all you have to say is shit?”
“Yes. The world is all messed up!”
“Care to explain that?”
“Since when do men say I love you without being threatened or forced to by a woman? And you tell me that out of the blue? As if I needed that burden on my shoulders!”
“Burden? My love is a burden to you? So, we can have sex, but I can’t love you? Is that the fucked-up idea you have of a relationship?” I was extremely mad. Mad and feeling used, like I might die at any moment because of her lack of feelings for me. My heart seemed to want to burst out of my chest or just explode. How could my soul-mate say something like that to me? Didn’t she feel anything for me? Was I just a hobby?
“Of course not,” she replied with a sad voice and shining eyes. She was holding back tears, to my surprise. I sat on the couch, my rage gone, because she seemed miserable. “It’s just that―I realized something and I don’t―I didn’t―I never thought you could say that to me. And even if you say it,” she continued, wiping the tears from her eyes and facing me, “we cannot be together.”
“Why not, Anna?” I was trying to understand what would make her say something like that.
“Shane…” She sounded desperate. “This is just a hobby for you, us as a couple. You don’t really think we have a future together. I’ve had a good time with you, but I have to put a stop to this before I get hurt.”
“I would never hurt you. I love you, Annabel.”
“Stop saying that!”
It was like my sweet tone and new confession had made her mad. It was like I was being evil to her and not sweet, just opening my heart. Like my words had hurt her. That made no sense at all. Was she just crazy? Just my damn luck, finding another crazy woman in my life!
“I love you!” And I felt like cursing by adding a “fucking” in the middle of the words “I” and “love.” I was trying not to be mad, but I was trembling, I was losing it. Why in the hell wouldn’t she believe me? It was not like I was going around telling every woman I saw that I loved her. I had never said that to anyone before. Only my mate would receive those words. And it felt so good to finally say them! But she just got angrier.
“You don’t even know me! You don’t even understand half of me! You don’t know anything of my life, of my pain, fears, and wishes! So don’t you dare tell me you love me!”
“I don’t need to know anything about your past to love you. And you are not inside my head, so you don’t know what I know about you, what I feel about you. Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know you! I know you. I care for you! I listen to everything you say to me about yourself, anything you think is safe to tell me. I hold you tight when you sleep to make your bad dreams go away. I love you, this Annabel, who you are to me, and even if you have any other side of you, I would love that, too. I even love the crazy one you are showing me right now. I don’t understand what you are so afraid of, what makes you want to push me away, but I will not let you go without fighting to make you stay! Do I make myself clear?”
I was breathless when I was done talking, so I breathed deep several times. My words came out angrier than I’d wished them to. I think they had some kind of effect, because she became quiet, her eyes wide open, attentive to everything I was saying. I think she was holding her breath. All I could think was that she had the most adorable red mouth, and I wanted to bring her close and kiss her. I guess madness was a mutual characteristic.
I waited for her to speak. She seemed to be processing my words or trying to find something to say. And when she said abruptly, “I know you are a werewolf,” it was my turn to be astonished.
Chapter Thirteen
Shane
It was my turn to sit down and stare at her for a long time without opening my mouth. She didn’t say anything else. She just stared back at me with some kind of guilt in her eyes. My mind was blank, even as I was intrigued by that affirmation—confession—accusation. What was it? How did she know, or how did she find out that I was a werewolf? And how long did she know that? They were all good questions.
“Are you rejecting me because you found out I’m a werewolf? Who told you that, and why aren’t you freaking out?” I tried to be rational.
“I already knew it from the first time I saw you.”
My mouth opened wide. "That’s why you said I was not your type,” I mumbled, while a light turned on inside my head, and my wolf tried to take over my thoughts. I made him shut up. I didn’t want to feel cheated, but there was only one way for her to know what I was and for me not to know what she was. “You are a hybrid!” I didn’t extrapolate the rest of what I was thinking, that she was a sexy, breathtaking, deceitful hybrid. I felt like growling. Why hide it?
“Yes,” she sighed, as if feeling ashamed and sad. “I should have told you sooner.”
“Yes, you should have,” I whispered, still a bit angry. She was staring in my eyes, which were probably shifting to black. My wolf was feeling angrier than I was. I was just feeling confused and resentful. “Does James know? Am I the last to know?”
“No, of course not. You are the first to know,” she assured, putting her hand over my leg.
Knowing that made me calm down; after all, I shouldn’t judge her so quickly. Hybrids weren’t very keen on sharing their existence with other species. They were—paranoid, solitary, very secretive, and most of them powerful. I stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. She seemed like someone else, so I had to focus and reason in order to feel more. She was my mate. I could not blame her for not trusting me sooner. “What species are you?” If only she would be half werewolf, that would make it so much easier for her to understand our bond.
“Does it matter? We don’t belong together. You will eventually find your soul-mate, and it will not matter at all if I love you or not,” she explained in a sad voice, looking elsewhere. I noticed how she blushed.
Her words were still pounding in my head, resonating, so I could make some sense out of them. I stopped, widening my eyes and almost letting my mouth drop in disbelief. I was finally able to understand everything.
I’m proud to think that I’m a smart guy, but damn, my mind was slow to process that moment. But I finally understood her, even if my favorite part was that she was in love with me. I almost laughed like crazy. I could lose my sanity with her, that was for sure. Her heart was beating so fast! The smile on my face vanished. I felt her sadness, and I watched as she wiped the tears that were beginning to fall from her eyes.
Was it true, then? Hybrids couldn’t recognize their mates? Could she possibly be immune to our bond? Was I the only one affected by the energy I felt coming from her?
“Are you feeling jealous of my mate?” I asked after prolonging the silence far too long.
“What?” she asked, apparently caught off guard by my question.
I was being mean. I should have just told her, but I wanted to know one thing first. How much did she love me?
“Annabel.” I put my hands over her face, cleaning the rest of the tears with my thumbs. “You said you love me, so why do you want to break up?”
“Are you serious?” she asked, leveling her voice because of the irritation. “You have a soul-mate! Do you care so little about her?”
“You knew that before you started dating me.”
“I was not planning to fall in love with you,” she confessed, taking my hands off her face and crossing her arms. She evaded my eyes, puckering her lips. Her tone was softer when she resumed speaking. “Besides, I hear them talk. They are all against you dating me. And they all expect me to break your heart and leave you! You know how weird that sounds, me breaking your he
art? Is everybody just crazy around here, even you?”
“Who cares about what they say? Annabel, don’t you understand? I love you, and you love me.”
“Shane, seriously, are you crazy? You are saying that you love me, but you don’t. Not really. And I can’t continue to love you, because I don’t want to be a hobby for you while you wait for your soul-mate to come along and make you stupidly happy!”
I made the mistake of smiling, because I loved her so much, and I was actually stupidly happy with her. Besides, she couldn’t help herself from saying that she loved me again. Moreover, Annabel had a serious problem of being jealous of my mate: meaning herself. That was promising. So when she saw my smile, she misunderstood. She thought I was mocking her.
“That’s not funny! Do you think hybrids like not having a mate? Do you think we don’t envy you? How do you think I feel for being in love with you and not wanting you to find your mate? Do you know how terrible this sounds for me? How bad it makes me feel? And I’m so mad at you for making me fall in love with you and being sweet and caring and—making me feel like this. And all you do is smile like this is funny!” She pulled away from me and got up. “Does making girls fall in love with you make you feel fulfilled?”
“Annabel, do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for my soul-mate?” I asked, getting up, disturbed by her words and sadness. I grabbed her by the hand and made her look at me.
“Who cares? That is not an excuse! My father waited six hundred years for my mother,” she retorted, staring at me as if I was the worst person in the world. I was amazed by how long her father had waited. He must have been a vampire to live that long; a strong one, too, without a doubt.
“Honey,” I explained in an indulging voice, “I’ve waited two hundred long years for you.” I whispered my declaration and took her slowly by her arms. She approached tentatively, as though trying to understand my words. Her big eyes opened wide as they looked into mine, and she was barely breathing, though her heart was pounding fast. A shade of red tainted her cheeks, and she gazed into my eyes.
“What? I’m not a pure race. I’m not even half-werewolf. So how can that be?”
She seemed not to believe me, and I felt a bit disappointed that she was not half werewolf.
“What species was your mom?”
“Panther,” she replied, making me smirk. That explained so many things! Felines were suspicious and reluctant to lose their independence; they were also famous for— My eyes must have grown dark with jealousy, because she seemed to understand where my thoughts were running.
“I’m not like that. My mother wasn’t like that, either. She was always faithful to my dad. I don’t—”
“I trust you. Calm down,” I demanded, caressing the hair that was falling over her cheeks and smiling to show her how happy I was. I was feeling much lighter after confessing and finally knowing that her feelings for me were similar. She loved me. It was like the rest didn’t matter, but she had questions. A lot of questions from the look of it!
“I still don’t understand how I can possibly be your mate. You are a pure werewolf. I have never heard of anything like that!”
“We are never wrong about this, honey,” I explained. I could never be wrong about the fact that she was my mate. The past weeks also had shown that she was unquestionably all that I’d ever wished and asked the gods for in a mate, even that adorable stubbornness about not giving up her freedom. “I don’t know how this works for hybrids, but you have to search inside yourself, talk to your instincts, and see why you love me and are pulled to me. You must feel something that connects you to me. One of your sides must want me.”
“They both want you, even my wild panther.”
That delightful confession made me chuckle. I hugged her tight. “Annabel, you have no idea how much I love you and how much I wished for you, but you have to understand that our bond can only be completed if you choose to accept me. A couple doesn’t work out if there isn’t trust and commitment of both parts. You have to want to be my mate, like I want you to be mine.”
“Don’t you mind me being a hybrid?”
“I didn’t mind when I thought you were a human! Why would I mind now?”
“You know, Shane,” she said with a trembling, sobbing voice that made me tighten the hug.
“Yes, I know.” But I would never reject her for that. I was so glad she was there with me! That she existed! Her being a hybrid only reassured me, because she could protect herself. I could finally mark her, and our bond would be strong like no other when she drank from me. Her vampire side would be completely surrendered to me. Mate blood was the most powerful thing to vampires. It would also be hot like hell, being bitten by her. It would probably be better than having sex: by combining both biting and sex, mating would be like nirvana.
I was pulled out of my fantasies by her questions. “So—this means that you just approached me at the bar because you’d sensed I was your mate?”
She broke the hug to stare into my eyes. She didn’t look pleased. Why? I had no idea. She should’ve been pleased that I’d pursued her and didn’t let her escape. It was not like I’d kidnapped her and made her stay with me against her will. It was not unusual for that kind of behavior between soul-mates, especially among soul-mates that were humans and needed a bit of persuading. But I would never do that. Love can’t be forced; she had to choose me willingly.
“No, not really.” I grinned, trying to explain. She frowned, narrowing her eyes and puckering her lips. “I just understood you were my mate when I sat down next to you and I caught your scent. There were like fifty people in that bar, but I could not smell you right when you came in. I went to sit next to you because you were breathtakingly hot. I had no clue you were my mate. But it was a bit hard not to notice you that night. I was drawn to you, Anna, and when I smelled you— You have no idea how I wanted to grab you and kidnap you and never let you be apart from me again! And you rejected me. That was—traumatic!” She laughed at my face and words, which made me smile. It was not a mocking laughter; it was a happy laughter. Happiness was returning to her state of mind. I wanted her to be happy and stay happy with me.
“Sorry about that. I was… I wasn’t looking for a one-night stand. I was just there… for the drinks. But if it makes you happy, I thought you were irresistible, too.”
I was surprised by her words. “Really? It didn’t look like it.”
“But I did. It’s hard to explain,” she mumbled and sighed deeply. “I was just being stubborn.”
“So—it was just because I was a wolf that you rejected me?”
“Not just because of that. I was… busy that night and kind of tired.”
“Yeah, busy staring at the vampires.”
She just shrugged and didn’t say anything else about that. It intrigued me, though, because, now that I knew she was a hybrid, she could have easily handled those weakling vampires. But then again, maybe not. I didn’t know how strong she was, and there were three vampires—maybe she was just curious about them because she was also half-vampire. It was not uncommon for hybrid vampires to feed on turned vampires. My attention was totally on her as she spoke her next words.
“So, your love for me is like… a forced thing?”
It was my turn to frown. It made me want to lower my lips to hers. I wanted to use my teeth to bite her and punish her for saying something like that. “You know that you were made for me, right? It’s not a forced thing. You’re my other half. Or have your parents never explained you that?”
“I was just being mean,” she said, sighing as she pouted. “You have a mean soul-mate.”
“No, I don’t. You’re perfect.” I chuckled when she stared at me with surprise and doubt in her eyes.
By the look on her face, she seemed to come to an understanding.
“What?”
“I’m going to be stuck with you for eternity,” she whispered. I didn’t know how to feel about her choice of adjective to describe our
bond and future. “I mean, me and you—you and me—we are mates!”
“Why don’t you seem happy about it? You said you love me. Are you—Anna…?”
“Shane…” She kissed me like she understood all my senseless babbling. I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t bear the thought that she would be able to leave me. I didn’t know how strong a bond there could be with a hybrid: maybe it was easier for her to let me go. “You are mine,” she said over my lips with a smile. That reassured me a bit. “Just mine.”
Now I felt her possessive vampire side talking, or maybe it was all just her. However, my wolf repeated those same words in my mind and enjoyed hearing them from his mate.
Chapter Fourteen
Anna
Making love to someone you love and who loves you back is amazing. I couldn’t get enough of hearing him say that he loved me, and I couldn’t stop myself from saying it back. I seemed to be caught in a really lame and mushy romantic movie and enjoying every single moment of it.
The following week, we spent our mornings working, our lunch time making love in his office, and our nights in the bar where we’d met. We talked and played pool or darts, but mostly we spent time with Shane’s friends and some of their female mates. They were all friendly and happy for us. I was getting used to feeling like I belonged somewhere. I was feeling at home, maybe because I had found my mate and he had the power to make me feel happy and forget all about my problems, doubts, and fears.
In the meantime, life felt strangely right, and Shane didn’t question my absence on my days off. There were secrets I still kept for his safety, because I still had to trust him to open up about everything from my past and present. It was one thing to be madly in love and believe in soul-mates; it was another to tell someone about my past and my origins. I still didn’t know anything about his past and whom he worked for. That town was anything but normal, so there ought to be some powerful old vampire’s family behind it all.