Page 97 of Crashing Tides

“So do you just know when I’m in trouble? Is that why you were there on the cliffs?”

“No,” he says, looking sullen. “I was just being creepy.”

My blood goes cold. I don’t want to think about it, but I have to consider the possibility. “Have you been stalking me?”

“No!” he exclaims. “I was going for a walk, and I saw you, and you looked… kinda fucked up. I wasn’t going to follow, but then you went down the trail to the cliffs, and I was curious what you were doing. And worried. You seemed really drunk and I was kind of afraid you were going to break an ankle and, I don’t know, drown in the mud or something.”

I really need to stop drinking. This is embarrassing to hear.

And he’s right. I know he’s right. None of that would’ve happened if I could’ve just sat tight and waited for Jane, but instead I had to get drunk and go on an investigation by myself. Duncan and I never would’ve ended up in the ocean.

“I’m glad you were there,” I say finally. “Even if we almost died.” I twist my hands in my lap uncomfortably. If he hadn’t saved me, would I have looked at him twice?

“Me, too,” he says, and looks at me softly, so softly that I have to remind myself that I have no idea if I’m allowed to kiss him or not. “Don’t say you’re sorry,” he warns.

“I’m not,” I say. I’m surprised to find it’s true. I’m sorry we almost drowned. I’m not sorry that it was the catalyst for our relationship.

Silence hangs between us, thick as smoke. I chew on my questions, then find one I like the taste of. “So what exactly is a fated mate?”

“Oh.” He straightens his spine, looks surprised. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t know. I mean, not that it isn’t obvious, but it’s—” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Let me start over. It’s a trait that’s unique to a few types of shifters. The ones I’m aware of are wolves and selkies, but there might be others, I’m not sure. Anyway, it’s… I guess you could say it’s sort of like a sixth sense. We can identify a really compatible match immediately upon meeting. It’s mostly our sense of smell, I guess, but there are, um, magical factors, too, I guess. I don’t really know. This isn’t something I ever expected to deal with,” he explains, face flushing. “It’s relatively rare. Like five percent of our population meets their fated mate.”

For some reason, that makes me feel really warm underneath my bandages. “So what does that mean?”

“Um.” A pause. Duncan scratches his cheek, then sighs. “I guess we should start with what it doesn’t? It doesn’t mean that you have to be with me. You can walk away of your own free will at any point in our relationship and I won’t follow. There’s not like, any magic binding us together or anything. Don’t believe the romance novels.” He laughs nervously. I try not to let my disappointment show. Being bound together by magic would be both metal and romantic as fuck. “Well,” he continues, “I guess there might be. But it’s not like—we aren’t stuck together. I-I can tell that you’re my mate and I, um, really, really want to make you happy and like, protect you, and make you smell like me and stuff. But it doesn’t mean that things will be perfect or that we’ll be together forever necessarily. I mean, most mated pairs do stay together, but⁠—”

I roll my eyes. “I can leave if I want to. Got it.”

“Right, sorry. It just means we’re really, really compatible on a lot of different levels.”

While I mull this over, he taps a nervous pattern on his knee. Eventually, I say, “Why would I not want that?”

This seems to startle him. “Because of, like, consent? And power imbalances? Um, historically, a lot of people thought that if you were someone’s fated mate, you had to be with them, and that’s not true. I mean, most people want to be together, that’s why you hear about marriages imploding and why everyone thinks we’re these crazy Casanovas. But not everybody wants to be with a wolf.”

“OK,” I say, taking my time with my words. “But I like being in a relationship and I like you. So why wouldn’t I be OK with this?”

“Because,” he groans. “It’s not like you chose me.”

“But I did,” I argue. “I thought you were kind of weird at first, but I don’t know, you grew on me. You’re, like, secretly funny and dependable and worried about things that nobody else worries about, like whether or not I can consent to being your fucking fated mate. I told you I wanted a relationship, right? And I chose you.”

I expect him to perk up, but he just looks unbearably sad. “It’s just… It’s a big deal. And wolves are weird. I don’t know how to prepare you for this. I mean, my instincts are dialed all the way up around you.” He looks down at the floor. “I put you in a pile of dirty laundry for a reason,” he admits.

I smirk. “I kinda figured.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t ask first.”

“I’m injured, you want me to smell like you, I don’t mind, what’s the problem?” I sigh. “Look, we can negotiate some stuff. You can tell me when you want to do something you think is weird and I’ll tell you how I feel about it, OK? It’s just like everything else in a relationship.”

He looks stricken. “The full moon makes me clingy.”

“OK, well, I like clingy.”

His gaze darkens. “What about possessive?”

Heat flares in my lower belly. I know I shouldn’t like that. But I can’t help it. “We can talk about it like normal people if it becomes a problem, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, looking away, cheeks reddening. “We can.”

I realize then that maybe this isn’t about me. Maybe he’s scared. For a flash, I wonder if I’m about to be rejected by my fated mate and I feel sick. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. We don’t even have to date. I can just… go,” I say, even though the words make me feel defeated, like I’m being sucked into a tidal wave against my will.