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I’ve been acting like a brainless mutt from the moment I jumped through that window to save her. I chose pretty much the worst way to reveal myself, then, when we were hauled away all I could think of was the cops shoving her into the back of a police car, treating my mate like a criminal. I’d gone berserk.
Her eyes grow wide as I shift and she takes a couple of steps back, her gaze crawling up and down my body. I try not to smirk as she lingers south of the equator for a few extra seconds before jerking her eyes up to mine.
“Hello,” she says hesitantly, then sticks her hand out. “Vanessa Bedalia.”
Of course I know who she is, and by now she has to know I know, but she’s so damn cute standing there with her hand out.
I take it in a tight grip and linger, feeling her soft skin, her fragile bones, and her warm blood rushing through her veins. Touching her feels right and the last piece falls into place within me, completing part of our mating bond. Elation, guilt and overwhelming despair crash into each other, nearly driving me to my knees. This is it. I’ve killed her again.
I can barely control the despair in my voice as I introduce myself, “Keenan Wolven-North.”
She allows me to hold her hand for several long seconds, then seemingly realizes and pulls it away, holding it to her chest, her expression anxious. “I’m not your mate,” she announces.
I’m struggling to listen to her words through senses gone wild. I can feel her heart beating frantically, her breath as it whooshes in and out… and I can hear her thoughts as though they were mine. Before I’d been able to catch snatches here and there, but now they’re crystal clear.
… ginormous penis! Almost worth pretending we’re mates just to see what he can do with it.
I swallow my laughter because she’s already freaked out. She doesn’t need to know the details of our bond yet. “We don’t have to worry about the mating thing right now,” I tell her.
“Great,” she says. “Then you can leave and I’ll go back inside and we’ll forget this whole miserable day happened.”
Unfortunately, that can’t happen. We’re bonded and there’s no way to undo it. It would hurt both of us if I left.
“Will you let me explain?” I ask gently, waving her toward the moonlit beach.
She hesitates. “I know what happened. You mistook me for your mate and when you saw what you thought was my death, you went crazy and broke through Yannis’s window.”
I’m a little surprised my human mate managed to work out most of what happened. “Yannis?”
“The guy who’s going to sue me, my agent, my dry cleaner, basically everyone I know because of you. Rich people tend to get pissed when giant dogs leap through their windows.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. It’s been taken care of,” I say stiffly. “And I would appreciate it if you stopped referring to me as a dog.”
She looks like she wants to argue, then sighs and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Sorry, I’m not usually rude.”
I know that because I’ve followed her enough to get a sense of what she’s like. And like every other reincarnation of my mate, this one is unfailingly kind to the people around her. Almost to her detriment.
“Come with me.” I wave toward the surf again. “We can sit and talk. Maybe I can make you understand.” I gentle my voice, reminding myself to adjust to her human sensibilities.
She looks dubiously toward where I’m pointing, then back at me. “Umm, do you have pants?”
I glance at the surf shack where I left my pants when I shifted and shake my head. I’m not ready to deal with the dragon again.
That’d been a shock. Of course I knew of Vanessa’s friendship with Pinky but I’d never gotten close enough to realize the pink-haired surfer was also a shifter, let alone a dragon shifter. It explains why the diminutive woman feels comfortable sleeping on a beach in a rickety shack. Who would fuck with a dragon?
“Let’s go down to the water,” I say.
Vanessa nods. “But we’re staying within screaming distance of Pinky’s place.”
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I try to reassure her, though if we’re being honest, it doesn’t matter how close we are to the shack. I could easily tear out her throat before she could let out so much as a peep.
She echoes my thoughts.
“How many serial killers do you suppose said something similar to their victims?”
“I’m not a serial killer.” Okay, I probably am, but not in the way she means. I killed my share during the Human-Shifter wars and a few since, but only the ones who deserved it.
As we walk, I catch another scent, this one driving me wild and stealing my concentration. Shifter’s have incredibly sensitive noses, which means we can smell the genitalia of our mates. My mate’s pussy smells like wildflower infused honey. It’s going to drive me insane imagining myself nose deep in her sweet nectar.
