Page 4 of Blood & Bond (The Bouchers #2)

Ambrose

“ W hen were you going to tell me?” she choked out, her eyes wide with a mixture of panic and disbelief.

“Tell you what?” I hedged.

This was not how I’d wanted things to go down. In a perfect world, we’d already be picking up Zeke’s mate and on our way home. We would’ve gotten them settled at the house, and things could’ve progressed naturally from there.

“Don’t give me that,” she hissed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Did you know before you came looking for me?”

“We’ve been searching for Charles.”

“Charlie,” she corrected angrily.

“Charlie,” I conceded.

“Were you going to tell me we’re mates?” she asked, glaring as the last word came out stuttered and breathy.

My gaze swept down her body. When I’d first realized who she was—what she was—I’d been shocked.

I hadn’t really ever had a type. I just liked women, all kinds of women.

Almost every woman I’d ever met had something—her smile, her eyes, the way she carried herself, her laugh, her intelligence, her ass or tits—that made her attractive.

Lucille was no different. She was beautiful, with her cupid’s bow mouth and her wide brown eyes and heart-shaped face.

I also couldn’t wait to get my hands on her ass.

But I’d been stunned anyway that she was my counterpoint. After all those years of waiting, all those years of wondering who my mate would be, I’d been completely shocked when I realized I’d found her. What about her made her my ideal mate? Why was her soul specifically the perfect match to mine?

“Oh my god,” she said, still staring at me. “I’m not, am I?” she choked out, her eyes widening in horror. “I’m sorry. I’m such a frigging idiot.”

“You are,” I replied quietly.

“Are you sure?” she wheezed.

“Yes.”

“But how can you be sure?” she asked.

“Because I can feel it.”

“That doesn’t clear anything up for me,” she replied, throwing her arms in the air.

I took a step toward her and then paused as she shook her head.

“It’s like…” I tried to think of a clear way to explain it. “If you saw photos of a hundred hands, could you pick out yours? Your brother’s? You mother’s?”

“Yes.”

“I could pick you out,” I said, watching as understanding filled her eyes. “I could pick you out of thousands. Millions. With my eyes closed. I would know you anywhere .”

“Oh,” she breathed.

“I thought Zeke explained?—”

“Other stuff,” she said, cutting me off as her gaze dropped somewhere to my left. “He, uh, didn’t explain that kind of thing. It wasn’t for me, you know? That was Charlie’s.”

“I understand.” Gods, did I understand that. The constant ache in my chest intensified as I thought of my baby brother finding this thing . This sense of belonging and exhilaration and wonder and surety that we’d all been waiting for, only to die.

“I don’t think this is the same,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t think this is what Charlie had. Charlie was glowing when he found Zeke. They were both…” She flung her hands into the air again, at a loss for words.

“It happens differently for everyone.”

“This is not happening,” she said to herself.

“Look, we can figure all of this out,” I said, taking a step forward. The few feet that separated us felt like too much. Now that I’d found her, any space between us felt wrong. “We need to go get your brother and get home. We can protect you there.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Protect us?” she said scornfully. “You’re the ones who put us in this position in the first place.”

“Lucille—”

“It’s Lucy,” she burst out, beginning to pace. “The only person who called me Lucille was my mother.”

“Lucy,” I repeated. It fit her. She looked like a Lucy.

“I’m not going to let you descend on Charlie like fucking vultures,” she stated, shaking her head. “No. No, he’s been through enough.”

“We need to get him somewhere safe.”

“Tell me where to go,” she said stubbornly. “I’ll go get him and bring him to you.”

“That’s not happening.”

“You can’t just keep me here.” She glared. “I’m leaving.”

“You’re not.”

“What are you going to do about it?” she sneered, shouldering her bag. “It’s not like you’re going to hurt me, right? You can’t. And you wouldn’t let your brothers, either.”

“So you do know a little something about mates,” I replied dryly.

“I know enough,” she snapped. “Tell me where to meet you.”

“Listen—”

“No, you listen,” Lucy cut me off. “ I will get my brother and bring him to you, if that’s what he wants.”

“I can’t let you go by yourself.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“I can.”

“Bullshit.”

“I won’t ever hurt you,” I told her seriously as I stepped to the side, blocking her path to the door. “I also won’t ever stand by when you’re in danger. If that means keeping you here, I’ll do it.”

“I need to get back to Charlie,” she argued, trying and failing to hide the desperation in her tone. She glanced at the window.

“I understand,” I soothed. “But you’re not going anywhere without me.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Her voice rose. “You can’t just make decisions for me. That’s not how this mating thing works. I haven’t even accepted you, and let me tell you something, buddy. Your odds aren’t looking good!”

It was impossible to hide my wince at the sharp pain that flared in my chest. She wasn’t wrong. There was a chance that she could walk away at any time before we’d cemented our bond. It would be uncomfortable, but with time and distance, she could live her life like any other human.

It would be agony for me.

I’d survive it. My brother Beau had walked away from his mate eighty years ago and survived it, but he’d never been the same afterward.

Now that I’d found her, the idea of never seeing her again made my skin crawl.

“What if just you and I go get Charlie?” I asked, hoping the concession would be enough to calm her down. “Would that be better?”

My brothers were going to kill me.

Lucy stared at the floor and crossed her arms. The room was silent for a long moment.

“Just you?” she said tentatively.

“Just me and you,” I agreed.

“Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb will never go for that.” She jerked her head toward the doorway.

My lips twitched as I tried to hold back a relieved smile. “I’ll deal with it.”

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “I think it would be better if I went alone.”

“It isn’t safe.”

“I’ve kept us safe this long.”

“You’ve gotten lucky, sweetheart.”

“Let’s keep the pet names to a minimum,” she grumbled, glancing at me and then away again.

“All right.”

“I don’t think that it’s a good idea for Charlie to know about you and me,” she said with a grimace, looking me over. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Couldn’t you chip a tooth or something? Get a zit? Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” I glanced down at my jeans and thermal.

“Forget it.”

“I’ll go talk to my brothers,” I said, not bothering to hide my smile anymore.

“Stop it,” she snapped.

My smile grew.

“The window doesn’t open,” I warned her, pointing to the bedroom window that looked over the backyard as I headed for the door. “And we’ll hear if you try to break it.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of fire safety?” she called as I left the room. “Shit.”

I found Chance and Danny still standing in the kitchen where I’d left them. Chance raised his eyebrows and glanced behind me as I joined them.

“Lucy and I are going to go get Charlie ourselves,” I announced firmly. “You two fly home and let the family know what’s happening.”

“Fuck that,” Chance snapped.

“That’s a really bad idea,” Danny agreed, his hands clenching the edge of the counter. “You have no idea if Charles is even still where she left him. You guys could get there to find him missing, and we’ll be across the fucking country.”

“Or you’ll get there and it’s a fucking trap,” Chance said, looking toward the bedroom. “How much do we know about her?”

“I know enough,” I replied flatly.

“So…nothing,” Chance said derisively. “Cool, cool.”

“She won’t bring all of us,” I said with a sigh, leaning against the counter.

“So our options are to try and wait her out, try to figure out where Charles is without her help, which I’m guessing will be an impossible task, or go along with the plan that she actually agreed to.

I’ll go with her to get Charlie, and we’ll head straight home. ”

“Why the hell wouldn’t we just wait for you here?” Danny asked. “You find Charles and bring him back here, and we’ll take the fucking plane home.”

“We’ve got no idea where he is,” I reminded him. “And bringing him back to Baltimore isn’t an option.”

“This is going to end badly,” Chance said, staring out the kitchen window.

“You don’t know that. She knows we’re mates. I think if we give her a little space, we’ll find that she?—”

Chance started laughing, cutting me off. Leaning away from the window, he pointed. “You were saying?”

My mate was sneaking, badly, across the backyard toward the gate.

“Fuck.” I strode toward the front door.

By the time Lucy opened the gate that led to the side of the house, I was standing right outside, waiting.

“Dammit,” she said with a sigh. “You forgot to paint the bathroom window closed.”

“How far did you think you’d get?”

“Well, I figured you’d be arguing with them for at least another ten minutes,” she said, letting me lead her back through the yard.

I stopped her by the back door. “Is it really so bad that we want to protect you?”

“Zeke wanted to protect us too,” she said as she pushed the door open. “You’ve seen how that turned out.”

“Nice stealth work,” Danny said drolly as we entered the kitchen.

“Shut up,” Lucy grumbled.

“Seriously?” Chance asked me, staring at me like I’d lost my mind. “You still think it’s a good idea for the two of you to go off on your own?”

“I don’t like you very much,” Lucy said conversationally to Chance. “You’re kind of an asshole.”

I smiled.

“It’s part of my charm,” Chance shot back.

“Huh.” Lucy crossed her arms over her chest. “I missed the charm. Where is it exactly?”

“You’re pretty mouthy for someone we just saved.”