Page 18 of Lycans & Lattes

The last bit of that question ricocheted through me. I didn’t want this to be complicated, but I also knew I had no control now.

“I feel them just as intensely,” I replied, reaching for her hand, but she yanked it away.

She glared at me, and the beautiful daydream I had of kissing my mate while we ran off into the sunset swiftly disappeared. “And you didn’t tell me for four years?”

She shot to her feet.

“Willow, I⁠—”

“Four years, Wyatt! I thought I was losing my fucking mind!”

I scrambled to meet her, but before I was upright, she whirled on me and stabbed her pointer finger into my chest. “You should’ve told me.”

“I should’ve, but the longer we knew each other, the more I didn’t want anything to change between us,” I pleaded. “I didn’t want to drag you into this mess or take away your choices. I wanted you to choose to love me for me. And not because some magic preordained it. I wanted to give you time, Willow, please⁠—”

She started to pace in short circuits across the blanket. “How many people know?”

I raised a brow. I was pretty sure everyone knew that I was the future pack alpha and insanely in love with a human. It seemed to be all anyone could talk about. “What do you⁠—”

“Does your whole pack know? Does the whole town know what we are?”

I swallowed thickly.

“Oh my god,” she whined, scrubbing a hand down her face. “Everyone knows, don’t they?” When I didn’t reply, she screeched, “Don’t they?”

“Not everyone,” I hedged pathetically, which only incensed her further.

The truth was that anything paranormal could spot a mating bond from a mile away. But humans didn’t have mates in the same way, and somewhere along the line, my attempts to not chase Willow away had turned into me keeping this enormous secret from her.

“Why the sigil?” She folded her arms around herself and retreated another step. “Why haven’t you been shifting? You said it would be dangerous for me.”

“It would have been.”

“How?” she snapped, her patience thinner than my own restraint.

“It was days before the full moon the first time we met . . .” I ran my fingers through my hair, remembering. “I went to Ramona and made the deal.”

“And what would’ve happened if you hadn’t?”

I took a tentative step toward her, and she didn’t retreat. “It wouldn’t have been good, Willow.”

The gnawing feeling in my gut started up again. This was the part that I was most afraid of because it might send her packing her bags and running for the hills.

But she looked up at me through watery eyes and I couldn’t hold back anymore.

“I would’ve torn the whole town apart to get to you because no one keeps a wolf from his mate,” I said thickly and watched her shudder, her lips parting in fear. “I would’ve wanted you so badly, it would’ve driven me mad with lust. I could have hurt you.”

“You should have told me,” she whispered, her eyes welling.

I folded my arms to mirror hers, wanting so desperately to touch her, to comfort her, yet I knew it wasn’t the right call.

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hi, I am madly in love with you, and if you don’t agree to be with me forever by the next full moon, I’m going to run you out of town with my possessive werewolf lust?’”

She huffed out a reluctant sigh of agreement. “Fine, so it probably wouldn’t have gone over well.”

“I didn’t want to drive you away.”

“But . . . if you’d told me, at least I wouldn’t have spent the last four years questioning every small thing between us, wondering if I was the only one.”