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When he stood there without responding like an idiot, she raised her brows in an aggressive scowl.
“Is that your answer?”
Lucas rubbed a hand down his face, attempting to veil the foolish grin that tickled his cheeks.
“No, no, I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”
Eliana walked toward him, her own feet emerging from the water that grazed the shoreline. She stood small and strong under the moonlight, a force not to be trifled with.
“Seriously, Lucas, is that how you leave things? Just going without saying a word?”
He sensed her anger, but he knew there was something underneath it. Beneath was an affection just as beguiling as his own that swelled in his chest.
Nevertheless, he fought it.
“I was going to send you a message in the morning. Plus, there isn’t anything left for me to do here, is there? You have your alpha, who is Tao, and you have rid yourself of the man who took your uncle from you. Why else do you need me?”
Eliana crossed her arms, her tongue slipping out between her lips to press against her upper teeth. She shook her head.
“That’s really all you have to say?” she said, nearly snarling.
Lucas chuckled, walking by her and continuing his stroll along the shoreline. Their shoulders nearly brushed, and he caught her scent sharply, traveling down his throat like divine smoke.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Eliana.”
Lucas continued to walk, his eyes focused on his bare feet and the sensation of the cool water washing against them. Everything in him screamed to turn around, to take her into his arms, and make love to her right there on that beach. Moving was like pulling against wires tied to his ribs.
“I didn’t think my fated mate would give up so easily. It’s disappointing, really.”
Lucas stopped in his tracks. Eliana stood behind him, and he swore he heard both of their heartbeats slamming into their throats at the same time. He turned to her, her chest rising and falling rapidly with a mix of rapture and fear.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me, Lucas.” Eliana stalked toward him. “I have been told that my fated mate would fight for me. Would do literally anything for me. It’s disappointing to see that you would let go of the chance standing right in front of you. Running from it.”
The show was off. He couldn’t lie to himself anymore, and he certainly couldn’t lie to her. The concept of fated mates wasn’t just some shifter lore. It was destiny.
It was a gravitational pull that two people felt between one another, and it happened to shifters without their control or consent. It would be insulting for him to continue to act ignorant of it.
So he stood there, bathing in the moonlight, the waves beginning to crash slightly more harshly as the wind picked up. Eliana uncrossed her arms, opening her body for him, her breathing growing heavier by the second.
Lucas barely recognized the sound of his own voice as he spoke into the dim night; it was the most exposed he had ever allowed himself to be.
“What other choices do we have, Eliana? It’s clear that everything else has worked out the way it was supposed to. Tao came back. He has you. You get to co-run your pack. Garth has been banished, and the mystery of your uncle’s death is solved. What good would it do to disrupt that?”
Eliana surprised him by scoffing.
“Is this how you always think? Devastatingly practical?”
Lucas glowered, giving her his own scoff back.
“What other way is there to think? This is what you hired me for. The job is done.”
Eliana let out a gaping sigh, her irritation with him swelling.
“What about passion, Lucas? Where does that come in your life, or has it ever?”
Lucas let out his own frustrated growl, feeling a headache beginning to bloom at the back of his neck. She was irresistible, even in her angry state. She was causing him great turmoil in questioning his own behavior and convictions.
