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She followed him, but we stayed behind. The mating was new, and we would each have to bond with her in our own way. That would require one on one time and patience. I had all the patience in the world until I saw her. Scented her. Felt her warmth beside me as our bodies accidentally brushed.

Now I had zero patience.

Once Rain came back downstairs and I heard the shower start up, I let out a sigh, watching Lark. He started a batch of kitchen-sink cookies with dough he froze for these occasions. The great thing about having a baker in the house, aside from the obvious, was that we always, always, had the potential for fresh-baked cookies in a snap.

“She’s hungrier than she’s letting on. And there’s fear. It’s subtle in her scent, but lingering. Like it’s been there a while and has become a part of her. What is she scared of? Is that why she was so eager to come here?” Rain looked like he was talking to himself mostly, but we heard it all the same.

Fear was a scent Rain was familiar with in his line of work, and so was I.

Lark closed the oven and tossed the mitts on the counter. “She only gives shallow answers to questions. Keeping things vague on purpose. No details.”

“You’re right.”

Rain sat on the stool next to me. “Tell me I’m not the only one getting a mate vibe here. I was questioning it before, but now that I’ve seen her and —”

“She’s the one,” I confirmed. No point in denying it. Did I have questions, yes. Was I concerned about all kinds of things? Yes. Did that change the fact that I’d burn the world down for the woman upstairs before having answers to all my questions?

Absolutely not.

And as a firefighter, that was hard to say.

Rain let out a long and heavy sigh. “I was afraid I was the only one. The bond was unreadable. Too much going on.”

Lark nodded. “There are all kinds of things between us, inside the bond. But there’s a common thread. We all recognized her as our mate the moment we saw her. Scented her. There’s no fogginess there.”

“What’s going on? We have to know, so we can help her. I can’t be…it’s not going to work if we’re blind to all the issues. But if we know then we can at least help or solve something or figure things out together. I hate being in the dark, especially when it comes to her.”

What a phenomena was mating. One minute a person was a stranger on the internet and a couple of days later, they were the person you were living for. Yes, it was mostly magic and biology and Fate and things turning and moving in ways we would never understand, but it was also her.

The way she moved. Talked. Kept eye contact. Strong character. There were things I knew about her though we hadn’t had much conversation.

Wild how shifters worked.

“It’s going to have to be her choice to talk to us or not.” Lark got one batch of cookies from the oven and put them on a rack to cool. “We have to wait. Which is a new form of torture, I’ve realized. Waiting on your mate was bad, but now that she’s here there’s a sense of urgency I can’t shake. A need for all kinds of things…and now.”

Good to know I wasn’t the only one.

The water shut off and goddess help me I wish I hadn’t heard it. Now I was thinking about our mate standing there naked, wet from the shower. In nothing but a towel. Waiting on us. Waiting on me.

I needed sugar. And now.

Grabbing one of the cookies and a glass of ice-cold milk, I sat back down and realized we were all listening intently to her every move.

We were lovestruck. Matestruck.

Chapter Fifteen

Evren

The bedroom was huge. Including the en suite, it occupied the entire second floor. My bedroom at home would have fit in the shower stall. Our entire home would have fit in the bedroom, and the only home in my former pack’s entire property that came close to this one was the alpha house.

Where I would have lived as long as I survived as alpha female. There was never proof that he killed his mates, but most people believed it. Yet they stayed and lived under his leadership. And cruelty. Maybe because, like me, they didn’t have anywhere to go. And since they were not going to be mated to him, they didn’t possess the desperation to run anyway.

How my parents were willing to let me mate him, I would never understand.

Dumping my backpack on the bed, I hung up the tops and pants so the wrinkles would fall out and tucked my underthings and socks in one of the drawers of the dresser then went in to shower. I hadn’t brought bath products with me, not even thinking of them as I grabbed a few days’ worth of clothes and B-Bear, but there were a selection of shampoos and conditioners, and everything else. I set my toothbrush and deodorant, which I had brought, on the sink and stepped into the shower. At first, I wasn’t even sure how to operate the multiple heads from above and the sides, but after a little experimentation I managed to enjoy the most luxurious cleansing ever.

Feeling much better without all that stale bus air clinging to my skin, I dressed in black leggings and a silky blue sweater from my backpack before heading downstairs to join the guys. The scent of chili had my stomach clenching on itself, reminding me that the only thing I’d had to eat all day was the muffin. Not super unusual for me because food in the pack could be scarce for the average worker, but nobody cooked chili that smelled anything like this there.