Grayson sets his coffee down.
“Coach.”
“How far, Grayson?”
“It’s none of your damn—”
“You smell like her, you idiot. You smell like her from twenty feet away. You think I came here this morning planning to ask?”
I take a deep sip of my coffee because my face is on fire, and there is no graceful way to be present for this conversation.
Coach turns back to me, and his voice gentles like it does when he speaks to Linda. “Forgive me, Miranda. This is not how I wanted to do this.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not.” His eyes return to Grayson, and the gentleness drops out. “I told you not to do anything stupid. I told you the situation was sensitive. Even if she is your fated mate, you do not move on a human without Council approval. That is the law. You know it is the law.”
I lift my hand from where it has been resting against the arm of the chair.
“I’m sorry. Fated what?”
A pause stretches between the three of us.
Coach’s head turns slowly toward Grayson, and the look on his face has gone past anger into something colder. “You slept with her,” he says quietly. “And you didn’t tell her.”
Grayson at least has the decency to look guilty. He rubs the back of his neck and won’t quite meet my eyes. “We didn’t get around to that part.”
“Get around to what part?” My voice comes out sharper than I intend.
He lifts his head, and it’s obvious he doesn’t want to say the words. They’re forced out of him. “You’re my fated mate, Miranda.”
The morning sounds keep going around us. A bird in the trees, the hum of the refrigerator through the open door behind me.
“I don’t know what that means,” I say slowly. “And I don’t like the sound of it.”
Coach answers before Grayson can. His voice is steady, but the anger in his voice is unmistakable. “Every shifter has a fated mate, Miranda. One person in the world the bond chooses for them. The connection is physical, emotional, instinctive. Stronger than anything choice alone can build. You can spend your life never meeting yours. Most of us do.”
I look at Grayson. He is watching me with that careful expression he wears when he thinks I am about to walk out the door.
“So you’re saying,” I begin, and my voice is so calm I don’t recognize it, “that the universe paired us off. That what I feel for you, none of it is mine. It’s just biology.”
“No.” Grayson is on his feet before I’ve finished the sentence. “Miranda, that is not it.”
“Sit down.”
He sits.
“You’d better start explaining.”
“The bond doesn’t force feelings,” he says, and his voice is rough now. “It pulls you toward someone. It makes the chemistry between us more intense. That’s it. Everything else between us is what we’ve built.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Miranda.” He gives me a pleading look.
“You knew.” The mug is still warm in my hand, and I’m gripping it hard enough that my knuckles have gone pale. “All of it. Every word in those woods yesterday. The lake. The speech about me being your home. You knew I was your fated mate, and you didn’t tell me.”
“I knew after.”
