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Charlie collapsed onto the sandy area. She looked down at her clothes and saw the blood spattered across them. “This looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.”
“You can clean off in the pool,” Hammer said, pointing. “You brought the bag. You have other clothes. You should take them off to help break yourself from being shell-shocked.”
Charlie blinked and looked at Hammer. “Okay.” She stood up and stripped off her clothes without thinking. The water was cool on her skin, and she rubbed it clear of blood. She was tired of running but knew they were almost home.
“I cannot give up now. Not when so much is riding on this,” Charlie told herself. When she was clean, she walked out of the pool and toward Hammer. He watched her like he wanted to eat her. She blushed.
“The pool helped, thanks,” she said, sitting next to Hammer. He looked like he wanted to bury his head into certain parts of her. But Hammer restrained himself. She was grateful that he didn’t, even though Charlie wouldn’t have minded. Killing a man hardly justified foreplay.
Charlie leaned over and kissed Hammer lightly on the lips. “Thank you for saving my life.”
Hammer stared at her with his blue eyes. She couldn’t read exactly what Hammer felt, but she felt like the only girl in the world. “Thank you, too,” he whispered, kissing her back lightly.
Charlie stood and brushed the sand off her skin. She got her clothes from the bag and dressed in non-blood-soaked material.
He cleared his throat. “I have something to tell you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. It’s about us.”
Charlie inhaled sharply, waiting for the bad news. Thoughts bobbed through her mind, insecure ones, which were about to tell her how foolish she was for throwing herself into something with Hammer. But she just as quickly dismissed them.I will wait for the bad news. I will not predict it.
“Okay, go ahead.”
Hammer swallowed. “In the magical community, there is something called a mate. This mate is someone who completes the other person. When a shifter meets their mate, they become whole. They can become more powerful, more destructive, more everything. Generally, the nature of mates is to match power with power.”
Charlie swallowed and was having a hard time breathing. Her patience frayed. She was unprepared for Hammer to tell her that they couldn’t be together because his mate was somewhere else. She dug her hands into the sand so she wouldn’t grab and shake the news out of him.
Hammer pulled one of Charlie’s hands out of the sand and threaded his fingers between hers. “You are my mate.”
Charlie blanched. “What?”
“You are my mate. Somehow we are connected.”
“I have no magic.”
“That doesn’t seem to matter.” Hammer examined her face. “Have you noticed a connection between us?”
Charlie nodded silently. “But what does that mean for us?” she asked. “Surely being predisposed to be connected to a person, magical or otherwise, isn’t scientifically rational.”
Hammer shrugged. “It’s not science, Charlie. It’s magic.”
“Science and magic are related, Hammer.”
“And our brains are chemical engines that run the rest of our body. The mating bond is like a chemical that links people together.”
“Interesting … I could get behind that explanation.” Charlie smiled at him. She wasn’t exactly sure what a mating bond would entail, but she was curious to find out.
TWENTY-ONE
CHARLIE
Charlie couldn’t remember just how long they had been traveling. Had it been four days since Hammer rescued her? Five? A month?
It had all blended together into a long, ceaseless stream of activity. Time had no meaning, trapped in the surreal version of reality she had accidentally stumbled into. If she was being honest, a part of her had begun to think it would never end. She and Hammer were in some strange afterlife and hadn’t yet realized this was a punishment they couldn’t escape. From now to eternity, they’d keep chasing their own tails like hamsters on a wheel.
It wasn’t until they finally reached the meeting place that it all hit her in a veritable tsunami of feelings. Seeing that an end was finally in sight made her realize just how far she had pushed her fear down. The sudden gripping acknowledgment of just how scared she was that she would never make it this far rushed through her enough to leave her breathless.
