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Tori gave me one last quick kiss before heading back to her brother. I watched her go, my chest tightening with longing and protectiveness. Fucking hell, how I wanted to claim her as myown, to mark her neck with my teeth and let the world know that she belonged to me.
But it wasn’t the right time, not yet. She needed space to come to terms with our connection.
With a sigh, I turned and made my way through the woods toward Clawson’s place. We had been friends for years, and his absence gnawed at me, especially given the current situation with hunters targeting our pack. With Tori no longer within range, my head cleared a little, though my wolf paced restlessly beneath my skin, urging me to hurry.
As I approached Clawson’s cabin, I sniffed the air and caught a whiff of Margo’s scent. Surprised, I hesitated for a second. What was she doing here?
“Clawson?” I called out, rapping my knuckles against the wooden door.
“Give me a sec.” His voice was muffled through the door. I frowned, my curiosity piqued.
The door finally creaked open, revealing Clawson with a sheepish grin plastered on his face. My gaze immediately dropped to the claiming bite mark on his neck, and I raised a brow in question. Margo’s scent clung to him like a second skin, and the joy radiating off him was so strong that I had to fight the need to step back.
“Looks like you’ve been busy,” I commented with a grin, jerking my chin toward the bite mark.
“Shhh, be quiet.” Clawson stepped out. “Mymateis asleep.”
The door closed quietly behind him, and I smirked. The two had been in a post-claiming heat. It was common, and it surprised me that Clawson had left Margo’s side at all, even just to answer the door.
“Margo and I…” Clawson rubbed the bite mark on his neck. “We finally worked things out. Turns out we’re fated mates.”
“Congratulations,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. I’d known both Birch and Margo for years, and never once had I guessed they were fated. A small pang of envy twisted my gut, but I pushed it aside. My time would come with Tori. I just had to be patient.
“Thanks, man.”
“How did I not know she was your fated mate? Seems like something I would’ve noticed.”
Clawson glanced at the closed door like he had X-ray vision. “Margo and I met when we were both pretty young. I mean, we were still in elementary school, and I had this fierce protectiveness toward her right away. It took a couple of years for me to recognize what it meant, and even after that, it wasn’t easy. There were times I wanted to tear apart anyone who so much as looked at her the wrong way. But I had to let her figure things out on her own.”
“Sounds familiar,” I remarked. It was fucking hard to watch Tori interact with other men. They could never give her what we could have together, but it was still difficult to watch.
Clawson’s eyes softened with understanding. “It took us a long time to get here, but it was worth the wait. You’ll get there with Tori. I’m sure of it.”
I looked away, unable to hold his gaze any longer. “I can only hope so.”
Clawson gripped my shoulder firmly. “Trust me. It’s not always a big, shocking revelation when you find your fated mate. Sometimes, it takes a bit of time to figure it out, especially if you’ve known each other for years. But when it clicks, it’s like everything falls into place.”
“Was it like that for you?” I asked, curiosity overcoming my reluctance to delve too deeply into his personal life.
“Yeah, it was.” He shrugged. “It was torture waiting for so long, and then when Margo and I first got together, it wasperfection, but I didn’t bring it up with her. I wasn’t about to talk to anybody else about it. It got about ten times worse when Margo broke up with me so she could figure things out for herself. She wasn’t clued into us being fated mates, and I needed Margo to go at her own pace. I didn’t want her thinking this was out of her control.”
My respect for Clawson only deepened. It cemented my need to wait for Tori to want this connection, too. Though it didn’t diminish the longing to have a full claim on her, it made me want to respect my mate even more.
“Ridge, if I could wait and give Margo time, so can you,” Clawson said. “Suck it up, be patient, and Tori will come around. If I resisted the urge to rip apart every single guy Margo went on a casual date with for years, you can take a beat until Tori’s comfortable and at peace with her own mind.” He grinned. “You’re a step ahead of where I was—she’s already in a relationship with you. She’ll come around. I’m sure she will.”
“Thanks, Birch.” I forced a smile, even though I would’ve rather glared at him, but he was right. Clawson had been around his fated mate for years and kept his cool—well, he hadn’t committed murder, at least. “I’ll try.”
“Good,” Clawson said. “What can I do for you, because I’m already itching from being away from her. Man, these new instincts are killer. There’s this intense need to care for her all the time. It’s more potent than I ever imagined. Having her out of my sight is almost a no-go for me right now.”
I was reeling from hearing my friend reveal so much personal information, but I made sure to pay close attention to every word. This was a revelation I needed to understand better.
“Right, yeah.” I shifted gears. “Do you have any updates on the security measures?”
“Actually, yeah. I’ve been talking to some of the new shifters in town, and the Montana Pack seems like they’d be willing tohelp us out. They’re also likely to be the most helpful since they have a large pack and a lot of able-bodied shifters.”
“Great.” I nodded. “The more allies we have, the better.”
Clawson hesitated, then added, “There’s also the Southwest Pack. My family was originally from there before we moved here. They’re small but fierce, and they’ve always been set on being completely independent of other packs. They’ve reached out, offering their assistance. I think it’s a sign that the hunter situation has gotten even worse than we thought.”
