by Zoe Chant
The words filled her with—what? Something more than what she’d already been feeling. Not just satisfaction, but joy.
Then Joel started to move. And oh God, Nina had thought she’d been feeling pleasure before, but it turned out she’d had no idea.
It was like—when he’d been touching her clit, the pleasure had been intense, but she now realized it had also felt superficial. Surface-level. This was deep, and primal, and real. This, Joel leaning in to kiss her as he thrust deep inside, was everything she needed.
Nina lost track of time. Everything was the rise and fall of pleasure, was Joel’s deep groans and sharp gasps as she shuddered and clenched around him. The way their bodies moved together was the rhythm of her breath, her heartbeat, her entire being.
Gradually, that rhythm increased. The rises were higher, faster, and the falls were shallow and over quickly. Joel thrust in harder, his mouth hot on hers. “Nina,” he groaned. “Nina.”
Nina came for the third time. This was like an earthquake shaking her body, spasms of pleasure rocking her down to her core, spreading out to her fingers and toes. She couldn’t tell up from down, only that Joel was holding her tight, murmuring in her ear as she shuddered and quaked.
Eventually, it lessened, and then subsided, and then she could think again.
Joel was half-over her, half-next to her, propped up on one elbow. When she focused on him, he reached out and ran his knuckles softly down her cheek. “Hey,” he said.
“Hi.” Nina blinked. “Did you—”
He chuckled and nodded. “Oh yeah. When you just...when you just came apart like that. I couldn’t hold on any longer. Seeing you, feeling you...” He drifted off, then shook his head. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
“Neither have I.” Nina’s body still felt like it was fizzing with the aftermath of what they’d done. “Mmm. I never went to move again.”
“Well, out here no one can make you.” Joel’s hand drifted down from her face to stroke over her side, palming the curve of her hip. “In fact, if you just stay right there, looking like that, I think I’d be the happiest man alive.”
Nina smiled up at him. She felt weirdly...comfortable.
That wasn’t quite the right word, though. The nest of blankets and pillows in front of the fire was comfortable, and her body was still shimmering with the aftermath of pleasure. But it was more than just the physical feeling.
It dawned on her slowly, as she watched Joel watching her. Because inevitably, always, whenever she was happy, she started thinking about what might happen next. And now, she realized...she wasn’t afraid.
She wasn’t worried. She wasn’t anxious. There was no frantic anticipation of what was coming. No conviction that she had to prepare herself.
She felt safe.
And with that, her eyelids started to drift close. “That’s right,” she heard Joel murmur. “Go on and sleep. I’ll be right here.”
Nina knew he was telling the truth. She let herself go, and slept.
***
Joel woke up in a sudden rush, eyes snapping open.
It was morning. The dawn light was filtering in through the cabin’s intact windows, and the fire had died down overnight. Nina breathed softly next to him, her body relaxed in sleep, her eyelashes resting against the delicate skin of her cheek.
Nina.
His mate.
Joel knew it. He knew it down to the very cells of his body: every part of him felt bonded to every part of her.
He’d always wondered if he’d know it when it happened. He shouldn’t have wondered. He’d never been more certain of anything in his life.
It had been there last night, even—that sense of perfect connection, that spark that had ignited inside of him when he’d been inside of her...pure happiness.
The mate-bond.
The happiness was draining away. This was all of his worst fears coming true. And with Nina. Joel wanted to keep her safe, make sure she was happy, and now this?
If he and Nina were mates, they had to be together. That was how it worked. Joel knew it all too well, from his parents’ tragedy.
But what if Nina wanted to leave?
Nina was used to being on the road, and hadn’t told him she’d decided to stay yet. There was no way the mate-bond would allow her to go, though. The very idea filled Joel with a desperate need to hold her tightly, make sure she was still here.
It was strange. He’d always been afraid of how the mate-bond would make him vulnerable, make him weak, give someone else power over him. But now Joel understood that that wasn’t the real problem at all, not with Nina. Nina would never take advantage of the mate-bond, would never try to hurt him. And being close to her would be the opposite of a hardship.
But now she was vulnerable. And Joel had to protect her, no matter what he wanted for himself. Just because some insane genetic predisposition, or some crazy supernatural fate, or whatever the mate-bond was—just because it said that they had to be together, that didn’t erase Nina’s wants or needs.
The mate-bond couldn’t delete Nina’s ability to make decisions. Joel refused to allow that to happen. He’d have to let her go, as much as his whole self screamed that that was impossible.
Then he’d be miserable for the rest of his life.
And she would be, too.
So then: suppose Joel went with her. If she wanted to leave, or if Cal told her she couldn’t stay, but she still wanted Joel along. They’d be on the road together, inseparable.
And then they’d be his parents all over again, living alone, without other shifters, with all of the terrifying possibilities that came with that. They’d be far away from any protection, hiding their true natures.
What if Nina got sick, like his mother had, and they were too isolated from other shifters to learn if there was a cure?
Another scenario struck a chill into his bones. What if Nina had wanted to leave, but the mate-bond forced her to stay? What if it did erase her wants and needs, in favor of making her stay with Joel? Would she even know it was happening?
Joel looked down at Nina again. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms, tell her it was going to be okay, they could figure this out together. Even though inside, he didn’t believe it.
He couldn’t allow the mate-bond to hurt her any more than she’d already been hurt.
So he forced himself to pull away. Slowly, he eased back until they weren’t touching anymore, and then he pushed himself to his feet. He backed away one careful step at a time, so the floorboards wouldn’t creak. He pulled on his clothes swiftly and quietly. When he reached the door, he turned the handle slowly and silently, pulled it open just enough for him to slip through.
Outside, he wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. But he couldn’t, because he was still fighting the mate-bond with all of his strength. It was screaming at him to go back inside, because he’d just left his mate sleeping alone.
Nina, Joel thought. Not some fated compulsion in his brain. A living woman, with an independent mind and needs and desires of her own. And if he wanted to give her a chance to stay that way, he had to get away from her.
He shifted. And discovered that in snow leopard form, it was worse.
Mate! his leopard insisted, straining to go back to the cabin. Our mate is in there! Not out here!
Shut up, Joel told it, and started running, as fast as he could, in the opposite direction.
He wasn’t going to make Nina do anything. She was going to have a choice about what happened, no matter what he had to do.
***
Nina woke up anxious.
She’d been dreaming that she was alone. When she started awake from the dream, her hands flew out to reach for Joel...but it had been true. She was alone.
That realization was quickly overwhelmed by something else. A bolt of truth that she couldn’t deny.
Mate, her leopard exulted. We found our mate.
The thought filled Nina with a stupid sense of bewilderment.
How could that be true? She didn’t deserve a mate, did she?
But it was true. She knew it like she knew her own name. Deserved or not, Joel was her mate.
That meant—that meant she could stay, didn’t it? If all of the Glacier leopards were rangers and rangers’ mates, and she was a ranger’s mate, then she could stay. The unknown Cal couldn’t object to her now.
She could stay in town. She could stay with Joel. They could even live in this little cabin together. She didn’t have to quit Oliver’s and give up her paycheck, she didn’t have to shift and start running through the lonely, empty mountains to the next small town. She could stay, work at the diner, and on her days off maybe she could help Joel with the cabin—she didn’t know anything about construction or repair, but she could learn.
And they could run together, and hunt together, and at night they could curl up right here by the fire, and Joel would look at her just like he’d looked at her last night.
Like she was his. Like she belonged here, with him.
Nina felt a strange combination of excitement and contentment spreading through her. She’d found what she’d been looking for at last. A home here, with Joel.
...Where was Joel?
She sat up. It was well into morning, from the quality of the light. The fire was dead, and she was by herself in the pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. There was no sign of Joel.
She touched the blankets next to her. They were cold, so he hadn’t just gotten up.
The anxiety she’d woken up with started creeping back. The happy anticipation receded in the face of worry.
It was silly, she told herself. Joel had to be around somewhere. He’d just stepped out for a moment, or he was in the bathroom, or something.
Nina stood up and quickly got dressed in last night’s clothing, then carefully double-checked the cabin: bathroom, loft, nothing.
She stepped outside and did a circuit of the building. It was a beautiful morning: warm and sunny, and the mountains stretched out in all directions. Nina could easily imagine waking up here every day, and coming out to breathe in the mountain air and look at the view.
But there was no Joel anywhere in sight.
Had something happened to him?
But what? This was his cabin. He had to know the territory around it pretty well. And if anything had gone badly wrong, he could shift. Even a bear or a wolf would have a hard time hurting a snow leopard—especially one that just wanted to get away.
Had he...left?
A cold chill went through Nina at the thought.
He’d said he hated the whole idea of mates, she remembered suddenly. When they’d been talking last night, he’d blamed the mate-bond for his parents’ deaths.
Joel must have woken up to the same bone-deep knowledge that she had, that they were mates. But instead of being happy...he’d left.
Nina shifted immediately. In snow leopard form, she caught Joel’s scent right away—in a straight line out towards the wilder parts of the mountains.
He was trying to get away. It felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. What was she going to do?
But before she could figure that out, she smelled something else.
The wind was carrying in the scent of exhaust. Now that she was paying attention, she could hear engines. At least two cars, coming up the dirt road that led from the main road out toward the cabin.
Who was coming here? What could they want?
Nina retreated behind the cabin so they couldn’t see her, crouching down low and peering around the corner. The two cars pulled up—and out came shifters.
Joel’s brother Zach and his mate. Alethia from the diner and her mate. The woman with the baby, except she didn’t have her baby with her today, and a man Nina didn’t recognize.
Joel had disappeared...and now the rest of the pack had shown up.
There had to be an explanation. Right? It couldn’t be that Joel had changed his mind, had disappeared and called up his pack to run her off the land.
That wasn’t something Joel would do.
Right?
But a cold fear was creeping up. Nina remembered other times when she’d thought she might fit in. When she’d just started to settle down, wondering if maybe this was the place she could stay, finally...and then a group of them would show up.
Look, girl. We put up with you for a week. We don’t want to get a reputation for attacking strange shifters out of hand. But you can’t stay here. We don’t need freeloaders, and we definitely don’t need feral shifters no one else would take. Get out of town.
She couldn’t hear those words, knowing that Joel was the one behind them. Her heart would break in half.
She started backing up slowly. But the movement caught the attention of Alethia’s husband. Nina saw his head snap around and his eyes focus on her.
Nina hesitated. She knew she should just run, but she was still wondering maybe—what if maybe—
“Joel?” one of them called, sounding confused.
“That’s not Joel,” Alethia’s husband said with absolute certainty. “We’ve got a strange leopard in our territory.”
Those words made it clear. Nina whirled and started to run.
It was time to get out of town.
***
Joel had run a long way into the mountains before he felt like he was far enough from Nina for it to be safe to stop.
Or would it ever be safe? Joel still had to fight the tug of the mate-bond. He still felt like he should turn back and go to the cabin, where Nina was probably still sleeping in front of the dark fireplace, unaware of the lightning bolt that was going to hit her when she woke up.
Joel climbed a tree, hauling himself up the bark with his claws, and settled himself into the V between two branches to think.
It was hard, when he was overwhelmed by memories of how wonderful last night had been. The way Nina had tasted, the way she’d arched under him, how her mouth had opened in surprise when she’d come for the first time against his fingers. The impossible heat between them, the silk-smooth feeling of her inside. The painful tenderness he’d felt, which had transformed into white-hot passion.
No. Stop. He had to put all of that from his mind. He couldn’t dwell on how beautiful she’d been or how her hips had tilted for him just so. He had to focus on the future, on how to help Nina going forward, and not be distracted by his own desires.
Staring out over the mountains, he ran over every possible course of action.
Nothing seemed like it would work.
There was no known way to break the mate-bond. So either he and Nina had to surrender to it, and allow that it would control every action they took—unacceptable, in Joel’s mind—or they had to constantly fight it, making themselves miserable every step of the way.
Joel pictured Nina’s life, which had held so much pain and unhappiness already. What would it be like if she were constantly struggling to stay away from Joel, hurting herself to maintain her independence?
Also unacceptable. He couldn’t let Nina suffer like that. And he wouldn’t allow her to become some kind of puppet, forced to be with him no matter what.
But what else could he do? He had to keep fighting. The thought made his soul cry out with anguish. His leopard howled in protest at the idea of losing Nina. It’s not right, he reminded himself. It’s not right. This needs to be a free choice.
Joel leapt down from the tree, full of determination to stand firm. He’d figure this out. He’d make sure that Nina went free. He’d give her the chance that his parents hadn’t had.
Then, just as he was about to head out, he was struck by a sudden bolt of terror.
Nina, his leopard snarled. Nina is in trouble!
Stop it! Joel shouted internally. He couldn’t let the mate-bond force him to do things. He had to stay in control of it, not the other way around.
But if Nina was in trouble, he had to get to her. It didn’t matter if they were mates or not. He wasn’t going to let her get hu
rt.
Joel started running back toward the cabin. The bond was telling him that Nina was still in that direction.
She would’ve woken up all alone. Had someone—some animal?—snuck up on her?
Joel suddenly remembered what he’d said to her last night as she was falling asleep. Go to sleep. I’ll be right here.
And then he’d run away this morning, because of his own paranoia at what would happen if they looked at each other. What the mate-bond might do.
That didn’t matter much if she was in danger, did it? Joel cursed himself for being an idiot and raced back to the cabin at his top speed, slowing down as he approached so as to be less noticeable.
However, he quickly spotted the vehicles in the driveway—Grey’s truck and Zach’s car. What were they doing here? Their presence was a relief, though; Nina couldn’t be in too much trouble if they were all there.
He saw them standing together next to the cabin. They were mostly in human form, but there was one leopard—Joel recognized him as Grey. There was no sign of Nina.
As he watched, Grey turned to face him; he’d caught Joel’s scent, no doubt. Joel came up to meet him, shifting at the last minute as Grey did the same.
“What happened?” he asked them urgently. “Where’s Nina?”
They all started talking at once, but the loudest was Alethia, who took a step forward as she said, “Nina? The waitress from Oliver’s? Is she the leopard that we saw here when we drove up?”
“Yes, Nina,” Joel said impatiently. “Where is she? Where did she go?”
“She ran away,” said Teri, looking worried. “She was afraid of us, it was obvious. We were just wondering if we should go after her.”
Joel shook his head, not sure if he meant no or just I don’t know what’s happening. “She would’ve been afraid. She would’ve thought—” He didn’t know what she would’ve thought, seeing most of the pack drive up like that. Especially if Joel wasn’t there with her. “I should have been here. What are you all even doing here?”
“We thought,” Teri started, and then bit her lip and looked at Zach.
“It was my idea,” Zach said tentatively. “We were going to come spend the day helping you with the cabin.” He gestured around to Teri, Alethia, Grey, Jeff, and Leah.