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Struggling to regain his control—he didn’t want to destroy anything else of Colt’s because he couldn’t maintain his hold on his anger or his wolf—Maddox let his thoughts turn to what it was like centuries ago, when witch burnings were a thing and it was all “shoot the wolf full of silver bullets, ask questions later when it shapeshifted back into Old Man Jenkins”. Paranormals chose to keep their world segregated from the humans—not because of any great secret, but because the brutal truth was that the alternative could mean genocide.
But the world wasn’t stagnant. It’s always changing. First there were newspapers and radio, television and then the internet. Paras couldn’t hide anymore and they didn’t really want to, either.
Fifty years ago, they stepped into the light and they never left. It wasn’t as easy as that, though. It took until humans stopped looking for monsters on every corner before the paranormal community finally revealed itself little by little, making strides, building relationships until having a law-abiding Dayborn vampire neighbor wasn’t just accepted, but encouraged because they made excellent neighborhood watch captains.
Back then, though, mates were mates. None of this Claws Clause bullshit. If you found your mate in a village, you ran off with her and prayed the torches and pitchforks didn’t follow behind yo
u. Sometimes the village would mourn the loss of a woman of marrying age before writing her off as a sacrifice that kept the things that went bump in the night happy. And finding his mate made a paranormal male very happy.
But as more Paras found their mates in humans, the government inevitably stepped in. Realizing it was futile to try to keep a paranormal from his or her mate, they passed and enforced Ordinance 7304: the Bond Laws.
Or, as Paras snidely whispered to each other, the Claws Clause.
Not only did the strict set of laws prevent against forced matings—and the disasters that always followed when a mate wasn’t given the choice—but the Claws Clause was a shield against the calamity that occurred whenever a bonded paranormal was left without their mate.
Shifters were the most unstable. Maddox would be the first to admit that. That’s precisely why he had Colt lock and barricade him inside the spare guest room. Sure, he could knock down the door if he gave in to his urge to see Evangeline. It might be a little harder to get through the three chairs and a solid mahogany dresser Colt stacked up against it.
He needed to use the brain in the head on his shoulders instead of thinking with his cock.
Maddox got Evangeline to fall in love with him once. If he couldn’t force her to bond with him, he’d have to convince her that she wanted to.
He banged his head against the pillow, trying to shake loose a brilliant idea or two.
Convince his mate to be his mate?
How the hell was he going to do that?
Come on, come on—
And then it hit him.
Mugs. The coffee shop.
Maddox exhaled roughly, lying flat on his back, slowly working his way through the fledgling idea. When he was first courting Evangeline, he hid that he was a shifter for the first couple of months. Pretending he was human, Maddox orchestrated an “accidental” meeting at the coffee shop down the street from the offices where Evangeline had worked.
A week after he made that initial contact, they were dating. It was exclusive from that moment on. Two months later, when Evangeline called him out on being a Para, he confessed that she was his mate.
But it all started that afternoon with a fancy cup of coffee.
Hell. It worked once, didn’t it?
Tomorrow, Maddox decided. He would head back to Mugs tomorrow, and every day after that until he could see Evangeline, scent her, and come up with a way to make her his once again.
11
After what happened the day before, Evangeline promised herself that she wasn’t going to return to Mugs anytime soon. Mainly because she kind of really wanted to.
The lure of the stranger was that strong.
She couldn’t explain it and that was after only a quick glance across the crowd. All through that day, she couldn’t go more than ten minutes without thinking about him. At night, she rushed her mother off the phone and pointedly refused to tell Adam about her shadow home from the coffee shop.
She barely slept. Every time she closed her eyes, she inevitably fell into another of her wicked, sexy dreams. The only difference? The shadow man with the golden eyes had a face now. The sharp, sculpted features of the dark stranger from Mugs followed her into her dreams just like he followed her to her apartment.
In her dreams, he looked the same as he did that afternoon. Black t-shirt. Dark denim jeans. There was only one small difference. He wasn’t wearing any shades, leaving her to drown in his molten golden gaze before the dream turned into another fantasy that left her feeling guilty when she woke up.
Because, when she was sleeping, Evangeline never remembered Adam.
Her dreams hadn’t stopped yet and she didn’t harbor any illusions that they would now; almost every night for months she’d had one. The shadowy figure seemed to follow her whether it was a nightmare or a fantasy. He seemed closer every time she dreamed of him, and in the few moments when she was trapped between sleep and awake, she wished that she could run to him—even if it meant leaving Adam behind.
