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“It’s dangerous.” She corrected.
“Dangerously beautiful.” His smile didn’t dim. “God, you’re beautiful.”
“Stop.” she ordered, gritting her teeth. “Just… stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop acting like all of this is some incredible gift and not a curse you stumbled into and can’t escape.”
Zander tilted his head slightly, “You told me escaping was easy. I just have to leave, right?”
Maya nodded too quickly, “Yes. Yeah. You need to do that. Now. Don’t put it off or give the bond a chance to grow any stronger. It’ll trap you, Zander. I’ll trap you here and you don’t want that. I know you don’t. You didn’t come here looking for this and you can still get out but you have to go. Now.”
He laughed. He actually laughed and Maya could do nothing but stare at him in utter bewilderment. The sound rolled through her, deep and husky. It made something inside of her go soft and she hated the feeling so much, hated the knowledge that this man could so easily become her greatest weakness, that she very nearly slapped her hand over his mouth to stop the sound. She would have if he hadn’t stopped laughing and met her gaze with a serious look that pinned her in place.
“You can stop trying to scare me, Maya. You won’t scare me away. I won’t let you.”
The knot in her throat was back and she shook her head wildly, “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving Noir, or you, not a chance in hell.”
“Wh-what?” She felt like the barstool had come unmoored and shifted beneath her. She’d nearly lost her footing. “Why?”
“Because you’re wrong. I think I did come here looking for exactly this.” Zander’s eyes softened. “I’ve had some time to think since Zoey told me about this world you all live in. I had a lot of time to think while I was waiting on you and I think, what I’ve realized is, I’ve been looking for this my whole life.”
She shook her head again but Zander only nodded.
“It’s true. I’ve never had a place to call home. Not after my mom died and I went into the system. I lost my home and my family and I’ve been running around untethered to anyone or anything ever since. I always thought I was running from the possibility of being tied down but I think, maybe, I was running towards this place, towards you. I just didn’t know it until now.”
“That’s not… no.”
“Zoey told me that the most revered power on earth for a shifter is fate. If this is mine then I can accept that and if I can, you can too.”
“Fate can be cruel. She can ruin lives. What if she’s wrong about us? What if this is all some sick twist of fate and I get attached to you only to lose you? I don’t think I can take losing anyone else.” Maya felt the words slip out before she could swallow down her doubts.
She hated the questions. She hated herself for voicing them. She hated the way fate had ripped her hard-fought control from her and she hated that the man she’d been certain wouldn’t hold her accountable to it was defying all of her expectations. She hated feeling out of control and that’s all she’d been feeling since the moment Zander Leery knocked on her door.
“We’ll figure it out, Maya. We can figure it out together.” He started to reach for her, to touch her again, but she flinched away before he could.
“No.” she snapped, too loudly, because a couple of people in the area turned to look at her. She lowered her voice and saw that Zander looked hurt. She shook off the urge to comfort him and instead backed up a step, putting more space between them. She needed some space. Being so close to him was clouding her mind. It was making the bond too strong, too fast, and she couldn’t think straight. She shook her head, “No. You might be willing to change your entire life because of some twist of fate, but I’m not.”
Zander opened his mouth to say something but she didn’t wait to find out what it was. She turned and pushed her way through the crowd. She needed to put some distance between them. Fast. The front door was too far away and there were too many people in the way so she headed down the hallway in back that led to the bathrooms. She bypassed them as well as the storage closet and pushed out the back door with the bright red emergency exit sign above it.
As soon as the warm night air hit her she sucked in a lungful and closed her eyes. She felt dizzy and lightheaded. She felt drunk but she knew that wasn’t possible. Not from the alcohol anyway. No, she was intoxicated on something far more dangerous. The rush of heat and the flare of the mate bond had nearly overtaken her but she’d managed to fight her way back to the surface.
She was a fighter. She could fight this. But when she heard the creak of the big metal door behind her followed by footsteps, her knees went a little weak. What was it that he’d said at the bar? Like recognizes like? She turned and found Zander storming towards her, a man on a mission, and she realized her mistake instantly.
Her mate was a fighter too and he wasn’t going to let her go that easily.
Chapter Ten
Zander had jumped to his feet to follow Maya the instant she turned and bolted. He hadn’t pegged her as the kind of woman to run scared but he didn’t blame her. Hell, if anyone could understand just how overwhelming all of this was, it was him.
He’d only learned about the existence of shifters yesterday. Today he was confronting the woman that fate had apparently chosen as his mate because despite the mate bond he had learned about, she had been avoiding him. Now he was chasing her down a long hallway into a dark alley because it turned out that while he was ready to accept that life as he’d known it was over, she wasn’t.
The whole thing was crazy! Ludicrous. He still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that he hadn’t fallen asleep at the wheel on the drive to Louisiana and was actually in a hospital somewhere, in a coma, having a very vivid and very strange dream. If he woke up and realized none of this was real, he had a sinking suspicion that he would be terribly disappointed, especially if the beautiful woman he was chasing was nothing but a fantasy.
God, she was gorgeous.
