Page 33

His cock stretches me to my limit, and I know I won’t be able to go on without his dick after today. He grabs a fistful of my hair, dragging me up to him. I cry out when his fangs pierce my throat.

“Mine,” he growls in my ear as he pulls away. He’s still fucking me, still driving me over the edge. “Say it,” he demands.

“Yours. I’m yours,” the words come out a soft whimper, but he hears them.

And then he’s soothing the sting away with his tongue, petting my hair as he spills inside me. I suddenly feel the energetic connection between us, like a glowing cord, and the rightness of Cooper and me seems completely inevitable—written in the stars. It seems impossible that I could have ever questioned it. I just…know. And I realize this is what he’s felt this entire time—the absolute certainty that no other person will ever be enough.

He finally releases me and lies down. He pulls me against his body, and I let out a long sigh and stare up at the ceiling of the cell.

That was… well, okay, then. That was shifter sex. I need a moment to process all this.

We lay together panting, my heartbeat slowly returning to a normal, steady rhythm. I press my hand against the side of my throat where he bit me and sealed the wound. My fingertips trail over the puckered mark from his fangs. The vampire’s bite didn’t leave a mark like this.

“There will always be a scar. I marked you hard. I dare any otherworld creature to fuck around and find out again.” Cooper says, a little too proudly. He gets up and gets dressed. “We’ve got to get to the forest.”

I glance up at the timer. Thirty-two minutes until sunset. I get up and get dressed and we run together to Cooper’s waiting Jeep.

The sun dips lower in the sky as we drive toward the forest breaking all reasonable speed limits.

“Will he come after us?” I ask, wondering if we’re fleeing to the forest just so Cooper can shift or if there’s some additional safety from the vampire there.

Cooper shakes his head. “He’ll be able to smell what happened in the cell. You aren’t fully human anymore, andvampires only feed from humans. He won’t chase us. There’s no point. And vampires hate nature.”

I clench and unclench my hands in my lap. Now that the immediate threat of Marcus is gone, I have bigger fears.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Nothing, just drive.”

But my anxiety climbs with each passing mile.

“Goddammit Rosalie, what’s wrong?”

“I’m scared. I don’t know if I can handle it.”

“Handle what?”

“Turning into a bear,” I say softly.

“What??” He takes his eyes off the road to look at me.

“Cooper, the road!”

He swerves to get us back on course. After another minute he says, “You won’t turn into a bear.”

“But you bit me and said I’m not fully human.”

“You aren’t. You’re a bear shifter’s mate. There are all sorts of physiological changes going on within you, but becoming a shifter isn’t one of them. Shifters are born, not made.”

“But… you said when you bit me I would stop aging.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I can turn you into abear.” He says this like I was completely absurd for even thinking it. “The mating bond ties you to me in a way that shares some of my life force and power with you. The effects are strongest for a human mate. So you’d still be a human... but with upgrades.”

“What kind of upgrades?” The tension starts to drain out of me, but I’m still wary.

“Much longer lifespan, slower aging, robust health, quicker healing time, a lot more physical strength, more than a human male.”

“But less than you?”