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Chapter Fourteen

Noah

For the past two days, Noah had replayed Jade’s last words to him.

Despite the fact he’d treated her like shit as they’d had gotten to know each other, he hesitated about the thought of being her mate, and accidentally rejected her, she loved him.

Holy shit.

Jade was a beautiful woman, but she had so many other qualities that he would identify with her before her beauty came into play.She loved her family, took care of others before herself, and had the biggest heart of anyone he’d ever met.And her ultimate sacrifice.She allowed him to decide for himself what he wanted, even at her detriment.

How can I not love her back?

And he realized he did.

Although she had trekked hundreds of miles after she left him at Kai and Liv’s, his rejection of her had lessened her life force and she’d stopped because her energy had waned and she couldn’t continue.

For long minutes after he’d found her, she was unresponsive.He could hear her heart beat, although it was weak, and when he nosed at her shoulder, she cried out in pain.Noah noticed then that she was shivering.He maneuvered his huge tiger form against her back and breathed a sigh of relief when she snuggled against his front while he moved his right paw to cover her front.It was almost as large as Jade’s entire red fox form.

He waited until he could hear her heartbeat grow stronger and he could feel the heat of her body against his.Noah still didn’t move away, but monitored close to two hours before he felt it was safe to wake her.

He was taken by surprise how weak she sounded, but at least before she passed out, he told her the truth.He wasn’t rejecting her, and he was sorry, more sorry than she would ever know.

Unable to communicate with the assassins due to the distance and forgetting to bring a cell, Noah carefully picked Jade up by the scruff of her neck and ran with her all the way back to her cabin outside Snowfall.The run had felt freeing, but by the time he shifted back to his human form and carried Jade into her bedroom, Noah was exhausted.

Staying in his human form, he pulled back the covers and got in next to Jade before he covered them both and passed out.

“Noah?”

Although he’d been sound asleep, his eyes opened and he searched for Jade, who he found several feet away from him, hugging the edge of the bed.

“What’s wrong?”His voice scratchy with sleep.

“Nothing.I woke up here and it took me awhile to piece together that you found me.But I don’t remember how we got back.”

“I carried you.”

Without waiting for Jade’s mind to catch up with their conversation, he reached over and pulled her close, capturing her mouth in a kiss that seared his veins when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him back.

Noah couldn’t remember being kissed like this when he was human, and his human memories were crystal-clear.When Jade broke the kiss, her chest rising and falling with deep breaths, the answer came to him.

“You were holding back when I was human?”

Jade threw her head back and laughed.“Yes.I didn’t want to hurt you.Can’t you tell in your tiger form that you have to be more careful than when you are human?”

“Yeah, I almost destroyed Kai’s house when I walked downstairs, trying not to knock anything over.And Ara’s pissed at me because it took me a few minutes to shift.Do I wanna know what that’s about?And Axel said I’m bigger than he is when I’m in my tiger form.”

Jade smiled, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.“Yeah, it’s not like Kai has anything breakable in his house.He learned when Seth was human and threw open doors and stumbled around, not to have anything nice.

“Ara is upset because ever since she’d woken up a shifter, it takes her a half an hour to shift into her wolf form.We keep telling her she needs practice, but when she doesn’t have anger controlling her actions, her shifts are notoriously slow.I can see you being bigger than Axel.You had a lot of muscle and after years of training and honing your body to move the way you want it to, I don’t doubt that.”

Jade sobered for a moment, searching Noah’s gaze for something.

“Are you a tiger because the man who bit you was one?”

He nodded.“Liv figures it was his venom that passed through my body first and I didn’t die because your venom left no doubt that we are mates.”

Jade nodded.“I felt guilty for taking your choices away from you.But when Liv told me to inject my venom into you or you would die, I couldn’t let you die.”