“I guess that makes sense.” Annette’s grin disappeared, morphed into a wrinkled nose, and then she sighed. “Your circumstances aren’t the same as mine.” Her eyes turned dreamy. “Wait until he does claim you though. God, what a memory that will be.”
“I wanted to ask you about the...”
“Claiming? Like I said, you’ll love every minute of it. One quick nip, and he’s yours and you’re his.”
One quick nip? Mischa frowned. Nip? She knew this word but she wasn’t sure how. Discarding the questions Annette’s statement brought forth, she asked, “No. Not the claiming. The MC.”
“The Nomads?” Annette looked puzzled. “What do you want to know?”
“Is it safe to be here?”
“You heard about Christie, I guess.” When Mischa nodded, Annette grimaced. “That was bad luck. But it wasn’t MC related. Truth is, the MC got her out and away from the guys that abducted her.”
“What happened?” She placed her hands flat on Annette’s desk, trying to imbue with her posture how much this information meant to her. “I need to know, Annette. I need to know if I’m in danger by staying here.”
“Mars is trying to take the MC on to a more legal route. Mostly because of me, but also because... well, me again, I guess. He doesn’t want to go to jail, doesn’t want us to be separated. But also, I refuse to let him involve me in shit that could send me to jail. I’ve seen enough crap in my life in war zones to spend my time back on home soil in a cell.” Annette cupped her cheek, rested her weight on her hand, and planted her elbow on the desk. “Things are changing, slowly. Christie is a dentist, but she works in prisons. A gang decided to use her as a means of passing messages to gang members on the inside. That’s not related to the MC.”
“No, but it will be now, won’t it? That gang hurt Mundo’s mate. Surely that makes it MC business?”
“To an extent.” She let out a slow breath. “I can’t say this world is totally safe. They do skate along a lot of laws, but you are cherished. Mates are precious and rare. If anything were to happen to you, the entire MC would congregate to fight at your back. Your situation isn’t that great; you’re illegal after all. We would always have helped you try to evade the law, but now? Now, you need never worry. You have the power of The Nomads at your back.” Annette grimaced. “That’s a double-edged sword, Mischa. They’re over protective as hell because you represent so much to them. They’re envious of Kiko but will do whatever they can to ensure your security. Without freaking you out, you’re their future. Not only that, but you represent hope for them. Does that help your misgivings?”
Mischa pondered that a second, unsure as to her own feelings—was she freaked out, or was she still just processing everything? She wasn’t overly flared though, so she reckoned it was the latter, not the former, and as a result, she asked the question she should have asked straightaway. “How’s Christie? Is she okay?”
Annette shrugged. “She’s keeping to herself. Mundo says she is. What she’s been through is a lot to take in, so we’re all giving her space until she’s ready.”
“Did the gang who took her hurt her?”
“They didn’t have time.”
Mischa let out a shaky breath of relief. “Good. I’m glad.”
When she didn’t leave, Annette asked, “Do you have any other questions, Mischa? I’m happy to answer them. I want you to stay here for Kiko’s sake, but also because I’ve found my little place in this world, so there’s no reason you can’t. I know you’ve been through shit to get here, and really, you couldn’t have landed in a better spot. No man will love you or care for you like Kiko will. Take it from me, this mate bond stuff is a thousand times deeper than your mama warned you about.”
“My grandmother was the one who did the warning,” Mischa teased. “Shifters were close to our village during the war and left an indelible impression.”
Annette laughed. “I can only imagine. I mean, at least we know about them. They were brand spanking new back then, weren’t they? Can you imagine the novelty? Especially when they were coming out as saviors to get the Nazis off our backs.”
She nodded. “Yes. I think my grandmother would have been very happy to be a GI Bride, shall we say?”
“I’ll bet. I won’t lie; I never thought this would be my path, Mischa, but now I’m on it, I know exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
“You’ve been a huge help, Annette. Thank you for your patience, and I do want to apologize about keeping this a secret,” she mumbled sheepishly, wafting a hand in front of her. “I really did it to keep myself under the radar.”
Annette shrugged. “I understand where you were head wise, Mischa. I’ll forgive you. Just this once, mind you,” she ended with a wink.
For a second, Mischa contemplated leaving, then when she thought about how much Annette had helped her, how she would continue to try and smooth Mischa’s path for her, she murmured, hesitantly, “I-I have heard something, Annette. Some of the brothers have loose lips around us because we do not speak English...”
“But you do,” Annette murmured, narrowing her eyes, focus fully trained on Mischa. “What have you heard?”
“Some of the men feel Mars is going on the straight and narrow too soon.”
“Oh, they do, do they?” She pursed her lips. “Are these men angry or just trying to be helpful?”
“Helpful,” Mischa said immediately, thinking back to how cautious Major had been. “Others…” She clicked her tongue. “It seems a few who liked the old President are the most dissatisfied of the lot.”
“I’ll pass that on to Mars, Mischa. Thanks for letting me know.”
She jerked a shoulder. “Truth is, it isn’t much what I told you, but sometimes knowing about the seeds of dissent can stop the root from taking hold.”
“Truer words have never been spoken.” Annette eyed her with curiosity now, but she ducked her head. “I’ll see you around the clubhouse, Mischa.”
Knowing she’d been dismissed, she returned the farewell and headed out onto the admin area. Once there, she went to her quarters.
It was time to pack, time to move her stuff into her mate’s rooms.
She’d made her decision.
Chapter Four
It didn’t sit well with him. Not one little bit.
He folded his arms behind his head and rested his neck on his open palms. Staring up at the ceiling, he stopped himself, barely, from looking to the left and watching his mate sleep.
He hated that she was on the sofa and he was in bed. He’d have preferred for them both to have been under the same duvet, but he knew that was way too soon. Still, a man caused no harm with wishful thinking. And if they couldn’t be on the same mattress, they could be in their rightful places.
Kiko didn’t remember much about what his granddam had taught him, but he knew that in this kind of situation, the gentlemanly thing to do was to be on the sofa while his mate rested in comfort. And yet, said mate was more than insistent that he be anything but a gentleman. When he’d arrived back in his rooms after an urgent Council meeting, one that had taken place thanks to a shipment going awry because the cartel had shopped one of their routes to the DEA, he’d returned to a different space entirely.
His closets were no longer empty, nor were they full, but they were shared between two people now. Mischa’s belongings were pathetically few, enough so that it damn near broke his heart and made him want to buy her everything under the sun. He wasn’t a poor man. He didn’t spend most of his earnings and had been saving them for that rainy day when he found his mate. He could well afford to change Mischa’s unfortunate circumstances—if she’d let him, that is. She was so stubborn, his female. He’d returned late and had found her resting on the settee. When he’d gone to shower, he’d seen her sparse toiletries taking up less room than his on the vanity and then had noticed she had unpacked some things in the closet when he went to get a fresh pair of boxers. Things weren’t worth a damn in the grand scheme of it a
ll, but they could sure as shit make life easier.
Blowing out a breath as he pondered how to get her to accept his help, he studied the ceiling fan as it swirled lazily overhead. The swirling motion was hypnotic, and usually it helped him sleep, even when he’d awoken thanks to one of the many nightmares that befell him at the witching hour—when his heart pumped like he’d been running a marathon, when his skin felt like he’d been in a sauna for twelve hours, and when his lungs were scorched of air as though his head had been held underwater for days.
It was a testament to how out of sorts he felt that his mate was on the sofa and he was in bed. He’d been tossing and turning ever since he’d climbed between the sheets.
Granted, it was wonderful to have her in this room, period. He’d never have imagined that getting her in here would have been so easy. And the fact she spoke English? Hell, the instant she’d spoken, he’d wanted to drop to his knees in thanks. Being pissed off at her for lying to them all had been only momentary because he’d been so relieved, grateful even, that the miseries of the language barrier were no more.
Still, he didn’t like it, and he huffed when his bear started making its displeasure known at the current state of affairs.
“For God’s sake, Kiko, why do you keep on huffing and puffing? I thought it was the Big Bad Wolf who did that, not a bear? They eat the porridge, no?”
Lips twitching at her exasperated chiding, he mumbled, “You know your fairy tales.”
“I was a child once, you know. I even managed a childhood back in the Ukraine,” she returned, a teasing note to her tone. He heard the blankets he’d given her scrunch and shuffle as Mischa moved on the minute space she had available to her—a thought that agitated him all the more. “Now, why do you keep on sighing? It is most distracting!”
He blinked. “I didn’t think it would bother you.”
“No, I didn’t think it would either. After sleeping with all the women for so long and in far worse conditions than these, I can’t believe your fidgeting is keeping me awake. I think it must be to do with how aware I am of you,” she murmured, her tone clinical, considering, like a scientist faced with a bizarre puzzle she was intent on solving. “Because it was never an issue before.”
A full smile slashed his jaw. “You’re aware of me?”
It was her turn to huff. “Of course I am. I am your mate, no? I was aware of you before I knew this, and now I know it for certain, it is worse.” She didn’t sound too pleased about that, a notion that was confirmed when she clucked her tongue.
He cleared his throat and asked a question he didn’t particularly want the answer to. “Are you dissatisfied with me, Mischa?”
“Dissatisfied? That is a strange choice of word, Kiko.”
He could sense her frowning at him but had to ask.
He’d heard tales of Mars’s reaction to Annette. A mutual response. They’d met up for an interview when Annette was a reporter for a state-wide paper and Mars had intended on being a whistleblower. The MC had been involved in some serious shit before Mars had taken over the presidency, and the women they’d saved from trafficking, his mate included, had been a part of a business deal their old Prez had negotiated. Mundo, a brother, had been there when they’d first met. He’d said that the chemistry between the two of them had been more than electric. Mundo had laughingly told him that he’d thought they were about to have sex there and then, in the diner where they’d arranged to meet!
And then, Mundo had been another brother fortunate enough to meet his mate. He’d been inside, and she’d been the prison dentist. They’d met while he’d been under her ‘knife’, and the pair of them had suffered thanks to not being able to consummate their mate bond immediately. Kiko wasn’t sure how, but Mundo had said his mate, Christie, had been in a lot of discomfort. Considering Mundo could be the master of the understatement, Kiko had to figure Christie had been going out of her mind with the need her body and soul had for her mate.
But where he and Mischa were concerned, nearly two months had passed without consummating their bond, and nothing. Nada.
He knew there were different intensities of mate bonds. As with everything, each relationship was unique. There were mate bonds where if one of the pair died, the other would likely pass on shortly after. Then, there were those where the mated duo could lead separate lives without any misery, and if one passed, they’d feel the loss of the bond, but it wouldn’t kill them.
Whenever he’d thought about meeting his mate, he’d never imagined his bond would be one of the weaker varieties. He’d wanted that total connection. He wanted to be consumed by it, by her. Now he’d met her, he didn’t want to live in a world where she didn’t exist. The thought might have seemed drastic, but after so many fucking decades alone, and having met Mischa and having known her, he couldn’t bear to be alone once more.
Only now did he realize how lonely he’d been. How alone. Surrounded by his Clan, with some of the men he considered to be his den brothers and not just brothers in arms with the MC, it still hadn’t been enough.
It would never be enough, not now that he knew Mischa.
Maybe when he was younger, more foolish, he’d have preferred the less fragile bond. But after so many years of desperately seeking the woman the Goddesses had crafted expressly for him, he wanted it all—warts and everything. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
And yet, it seemed he wasn’t going to get that.
Mischa could pull away. She didn’t seem too interested in him sexually. He’d jacked off in front of her, and she’d made a slight moan, but that was it. Then they’d had that whole conversation with him standing butt naked, and she hadn’t lost control. She hadn’t ravaged him—not like Annette, who had practically attacked Mars where he stood. Now, here they were, in separate sleeping areas in the same room, and once again, she was perfectly at ease—unlike Christie who’d had to endure weeks without her mate and had suffered as a consequence, so much so, they’d had to take the claiming at a slow pace so as not to overwhelm her body. Not that Mundo talked about it all that much, but Kiko was old enough to know how to read between the lines and read them well.
His mate might have been totally comfortable where she was, at peace with her new life, but Kiko wasn’t, nor was his bear. The beast was riled up, relieved its mate was close enough to protect yet uncertain as to why she couldn’t be claimed yet, making her proximity a blessing and a curse.
Her answer seemed to take an age in coming. So long, in fact, that he’d almost forgotten what it was he’d asked her, too intent on the constant analysis of worries and fears that assailed him in regard to their mate bond. But then, she broke into his scared musings and murmured, “No, I’m not dissatisfied. I’m anything but.”
Well, that sounded a little more reassuring.
Anything but...? That had to bode well, right?
She’d been through hell, and he had no intention of adding to the torment she must still be enduring psychologically. If anyone understood what hell was like, Kiko did. He’d never force anything on her and would always treat her wishes with respect and care. It was why he wasn’t humping her leg like a dog, even though that was what he felt like doing. His cock was so hard, he was surprised it hadn’t torn a hole through the sheet covering him!
“Then why did you say it’s worse now you’re aware of me?” Christ, he sounded like a pouting cub. He scrubbed a hand over his face, tired by the emotional wringer of having a mate yet not having her. Truth was, times like this, he felt like a cub, scared, still clinging to his dam’s skirts, looking to her to make his world right. Only trouble was, Kiko’s dam had died a long time ago. She’d caught the mumps, of all things, and a rare side effect had killed her. Although their immune systems were incredibly strong after the claiming, human mates could still be felled. It was what made them so precious and had their mates terrified whenever they caught so much as a sniffle. When she’d passed, she’d taken her mate, Kiko’s father, along with her.
�
��I didn’t mean worse as in it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I meant more like the intensity of my awareness is stronger than ever before.” She seemed to taste the words, selecting them carefully, choosing each one with care now that she knew she’d inadvertently hurt him.
KIKO (MC Bear Mates Book 3) Page 6