Page 60 of As The Shifter World Turns

60

IT’S ABOUT TIME ALREADY!

Ryder

I rolled over to see Ivor staring at me. Not in a creepy way, but more like he was admiring me.

“Should I go back to sleep?” I adored having him by my side as I slept.

We’d come into the bedroom to climb under the covers and watch a movie, Ivor not being able to find a comfortable position on the couch. He only made it fifteen minutes into the flick and I made it… I didn’t get to the end, but I had a pretty decent idea who the serial killer was.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just woke up and thought… not so much thinking… I woke up and was so happy to be here with my mate.” His eyes fell to the blankets, no longer meeting mine. “My wolf thinks you are our mate.”

My breath hitched, not wanting to ruin this moment.

I tipped his chin to guide him to meet my eyes. “And what does Ivor think?”

“That I wish you were and I hate how I let my insecurities ruin what could’ve been amazing with us and how I have no idea what I’m doing but I know I want to do it with you.” He said it in one breath, the words coming out a mile a minute.

“I want to with you as well. And my stag recognizes you as ours.” I needed him to hear that—to believe it. “I love you Ivor, but it's more than that—deeper than that. I don’t even think I can explain it, it surpasses words.”

“Mate,” he said. “That’s the word. Mate.”

“It is, but no rush to do anything more than acknowledge it.” The last thing I wanted to do was to press Ivor into doing anything while he was pregnant or even after he had our baby for that matter. We were going to do all of this at his speed.

“But you want to?”

“More than anything,” I assured him. “I love you Ivor.”

He buried his head in my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around him, loving the feel of him pressed against me.

“And this morning, when I woke up, I felt it too… like I woke in the best dream ever, with you by my side.”

He hummed against my skin, the humming turning more into his animal’s rumbling and the next thing I knew, there was a sharp pain in my shoulder followed by my stag pushing me back and taking control, something he’d never done before, and he angled our head and sunk my teeth into Ivor’s shoulder.

“Mate,” Ivor cried out.

“Mate.” I closed my eyes. The euphoria didn’t completely cover the guilt I felt for mating him without permission. Although I supposed that him mating me was the permission in a way. It was so confusing, but all I wanted to focus on was the two of us being one, being mates. “I love you.”

“I didn’t mean to.” My body froze against his. “No, mate. I wanted to, I just—it was my wolf. He was a pushy beast.”

I chuckled. “So was my stag.”

“Do you know what I want to do now?”

“Does it involve taking off our clothes? Because if so, I'm in.” I inhaled deeply, his scent already beginning to mingle with my own, as was the way of my kind. Humans joked about being together long enough they dressed alike. Stags? We scented alike.

“Excellent.” He kissed where he marked me and rolled out of bed and started to get undressed. “Think we can drive through and get a bagel on the way?”

Now I was good and confused. I pushed myself to sit up.

“Remind me where we are going?”

“To let our animals run.” He was so gleeful about the notion, as if he hadn’t noticed his cock was at full attention, the tip glistening with pre-cum.

“A bagel sounds delightful.” If my mate wanted to carb load then run, we were going to carb load and run.

He started towards the bathroom and turned around to face me again. “Aren’t you coming?” He grabbed his erection. “It’s not like this is going to fix itself.” He winked—so confident—so sexy. Mating had done that. He felt our bond and understood how deep it was. Did that mean our lives were going to be sunshine and roses? Probably not, but it was a start.

“I’m coming.” I slid out of bed.

“Not yet you aren’t, but you will be soon.”

Daire

“Got a minute?” I didn’t even wait for Neil to come all the way in without pouncing on him. We were supposed to be ordering Indian and hanging out for the night, not him listening to me vent about relationship crap.

“Can I pee first?”

“Yeah, sorry.” I stepped out of his way and he walked by.

I dug through the drawer and found the menu from our favorite Indian place. They didn’t have a decent website, but they sure had amazing food. And maybe the lack of a website was a good thing. We always had the food here in under an hour and the same couldn’t be said for the place we used to go to.

I scanned the menu as if I hadn’t already decided what I wanted pretty much when we made the plans.

“What are you getting?” Neil was back.

“I think I ruined everything with Nate.” I just blurted it out.

“That doesn’t sound good. I was thinking more along the line of saag paneer.” He came around the counter and squeezed my shoulder. “Sorry. I was trying to break the tension. Tell me what happened.”

“Let’s order first. That way when I’m a sobbing mess, you’ll have something to do.” He squeezed my shoulder one last time and reached for the menu.

“I want the assorted naan basket and the palak paneer.” He set it down. “Want me to call?”

“Naw, I got this. You’re the one who is going to listen to how I botched things up with yet another guy.”

Neil opened and closed his mouth. “I’m not… I’m going to the couch. I want to play Pac Man.”

I thought he was joking again, but after the food was ordered, I went to the sofa to see him avoiding ghosts like a boss.

“What? I like the oldies.” He set the controller down. “Now tell me what went wrong with Nate. It seemed like you two were getting along.”

“We were. I thought we were, but he has someone else.” And it made me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I didn’t think he was like that. He seemed so… but then again Wesley had fooled me too. Maybe I was just destined to be single.

At least Nate didn’t steal from me.

“He’s mated?” Neil gasped. “He seemed so nice.”

“No, not mated.” At least I didn’t think so and if they were it wasn’t in a visible spot which made it worse.

“Living together?”

“I don’t know.” I fell back against the couch.

“Daire, what do you know. Tell me the entire story.” He turned to face me, giving me his full attention .

“I asked him to go to dinner tomorrow and he said he had plans with Trevor.”

“Are you thinking he’s poly? It’s not like he pretended to hide it or anything.” Neil had a good point. He just said it like he was telling me about what he had for lunch. Maybe he was poly.

“Perhaps he is. But wouldn’t he have told me or something?”

“Did he even tell you he was going on a date?” Neil asked.

“No. What should I do?” Could I be worrying over nothing? Because if so, I would be equal parts pissed at myself and grateful.

“Text him and ask him who Trevor is. Tell him you forgot or some shit or better yet call him.” Neil was being logical.

“Fine.” I took out my phone and called him because if I could read this much into things with no facts, I couldn't imagine how much I’d read into a text.

“Hey. Nice to hear from you.” Nate answered on the first ring.

“You too. This is silly, but… who is Trevor? I should’ve asked before, but I didn’t. Not that I need to know your entire life, but because… you said it like I should know and…”

“And it was bugging you?” he offered.

“That.” No point covering it up.

“Trevor is my elderly neighbor. I’m taking him to bingo.” Out of all the things I thought I might hear, that was most definitely not one of them.

“I should’ve just asked at the time.” I let out a long sigh.

“We’re just getting to know each other. Things will be easier as time goes on.”

As time goes on . I liked the sound of that.