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He’ll do anything in his power to make it so. Between surprise appearances at my job, mind-blowing sex, making me food, and bringing me gifts, he’s using every tool in his arsenal to get me to agree.
And I’m close. So, so close to giving in.
The guy splits his time between taking care of his pack and courting me, like they’re both his full-time jobs. Luna, he even turned a vamp city townhouse into another Alpha cabin for him since, no matter how many times he offers, I’m still too stubborn to return to the mountains with him.
Once Ryker accepted that my elusiveyesmight take longer than he thought, he realized that he would need a place of his own in Muncie. It would take too much time to travel back and forth between Muncie and Mountainside during the time he wanted to designate as “ours”. Plus, there was the whole “Gem living with a bloodsucker” thing. No matter what went down between me and my vamp roomie, I draw the line at inviting Ryker inside of Aleks’s and my apartment.
There’s no reason for him to enter my territory. We have his townhouse if we need privacy, and before he arranged to rent it? We already proved that we could mate pretty much anywhere. The shadowed areas of the park. The abandoned trails in the woods surrounding Muncie. The backseat of my jeep when I purposely park it out of sight of prying eyes. Even, one memorable time, up against the brick wall behind Charlie’s.
But in the apartment I share with Aleks? It just… it doesn’t seem right. And even though this thing between me and Ryker has been exclusive for more than two full moons now, I still can’t bring myself to closely examine the reasonswhy.
Luckily, my calculating Alpha ran the numbers and decided that, if I was stubbornly clinging to my life in Muncie, he might as well be comfortable. With the blessing of Roman Zakharov—the head vamp in the Fang City, and the leader of the mysterious Cadre that controls Muncie—he’s allowed to rent a townhouse near the bar where I work.
To my surprise, I later found out that Ryker got permission—another shock, I gotta admit, since alpha wolvesneverask for permission—to both court me and make this place his own at the same time.
Right after the brutal fight between Ryker and Aleks down at the bar, Ryker used his status as my intended mate to get Roman to side with him instead of Aleks. So, when he’s not at Mountainside, either doing his Alpha duties or trying to deal with the fall-out from Shane’s betrayal, he’s usually here.
When he first tracked me down, he devoted as much time as possible to convincing me to return to the pack with him. I quickly put an end to that. I might be willing to see if what we have is something I’ll eventually make permanent, but after suffering the sting of his rejection this past year, I just can’t jump into a forever mating paws first.
Besides, this is just another stage of the mating dance. We’re getting to know each other—the real Ryker and Gem, not the aloof Alpha and Omega we appeared to be—and testing out the waters of a prospective mating without actually bonding first.
I know that Ryker wants me to just say yes. It would be so easy to. Say the word and perform the Luna Ceremony and we’ll be together forever.
Only… the last year has fucked me up. No matter how happy this male makes me, there’s a tiny part of me that’s convinced that it won’t last. That something’s going to come along and ruin what we have. Ryker could reject me again, or his traitor of a Beta might stick his snout in where it doesn’t belong, and I know that Trish Danvers was kicked out of the pack six weeks ago, but what if she comes back?
Excuses. They’re all excuses. I know it, and when Ryker lets his frustrations out, he tells me that he knows it, too.
But he accepts it anyway because, after all, it’s my choice. A mate has to choose.
And I’m choosing to wait just a little longer.
It’s not like I’m the only one who’s ever made an Alpha wait, either. Sure, our shifter rituals say that an Alpha couple should be installed as soon as possible after a new Alpha takes over the pack; that’s why I was first sent to mate Ryker last year, after his father’s accidental death. There’s precedent for waiting, though. Paul Booker, when he took over the Lakeview Pack, decided that he wouldn’t even ask the Luna for the name of his fated mate. He would run his pack as Alpha, and if he found a mate that he chose, then great. He wasn’t going to be trapped into a forever mating just because it was expected of him and, as the Alpha, he had the authority to change the rules as he went along.
Of course, a few years into being Alpha, he met my mom and chose her. But even there there’s precedent. Instead of bonding herself to him their first full moon together, she got to know him, got to respect him, even trusted him enough to tell him my secret, and only then did she bond with him six months later.
And don’t get me started on my mom and my bio-dad. Wicked Wolf Walker acted as her mate for three years, though they never bonded. My mom avoided him every time the Luna was out, and he pointedly didn’t push the topic of the Luna Ceremony if only because—once he was fully bonded—he wouldn’t be able to sleep with every damned female in the Western Pack.
It’s just… Ryker doesn’t want to wait anymore. He hasn’t wanted to wait since he came back into my life, claiming me as his. But until I say yes and accept him? That’s all he can do.
I understand why Ryker’s so eager to cement our bond. Even though we’ve only beentogethertogether for a little less than two months, he’s known that I was his mate just as long as I’ve known he was destined to be mine:eleven years. He’s lived his life with the aim of making me his bonded mate and now that he can? Now that he’s an Alpha ready to give Mountainside its Alpha couple? I’m the one putting my foot down.
And what sucks so bad? Is that IknowI’m sabotaging the one thing in life I’ve always wanted. Eleven years, I looked forward to staking my claim to Ryker Wolfson.
So why the hell am I fighting so hard against it?
Ugh.
Frustration pulses through me. I lash out, kicking the nearest lamppost, wincing when my shifter strength has the metal pole snapping.
Whoops.
The post comes crashing down, hitting the asphalt with a smash. Broken glass tinkles, the faint light blinking out as I break into a flat-out sprint before anyone can blame me for the destruction of city property.
I blame my guilt over smashing the lamppost for what happens next. Too consumed with fleeing the scene of my crime, I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. Though the Cadre runs Muncie, there’s still a pretty healthy human population inside its borders. Humans mean cops. I keep expecting one of the boys—or girls—in blue to pop up out of nowhere, pissed off that the lamppost is broken, and puzzled that a tiny thing like me could be responsible for the mess.
If I get arrested for vandalism, no way that won’t get back to the Cadre—or Ryker. I can just hear the lecture now. Impulsive Gem, so reckless that she showed off her shifter strength in public.
No, thanks.
