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Chapter Five

CHOMP

C allie doesn’t even knock; she just walks in and heads to Ariel’s side. After taking her hand, the two of them walk out the front door as Kodiak stomps inside. He pauses, his nose in the air, then he veers to the kitchen table. Not even bothering with a fucking plate, he grabs one of the steaks on the top and starts chowing down while I glare at him. Here I am, crushed beyond anything I’ve ever experienced and he’s eating the food I cooked for my mate.

After he chews then swallows, he asks, “So, what did you do to fuck this up?”

I roll my eyes remembering all the missteps that he made when pursuing his mate, Callie. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone after those two pieces of shit with her watching, but damn it, they had already hurt her and were doing so again. There was no way my gator was going to allow it to happen.

“She was telling me about before, when she lived with him and I lost it because he was hurting her in other ways besides physically, brother,” I reply. “My gator peeked out and she recognized my eyes from the campsite and guessed it was me who was involved. It freaked her out. Kodiak, what do I do? My gator is shredding my guts!”

He grabs another steak and starts eating it while he looks at the ceiling. I realize he’s probably thinking about what I’ve said, but I’m dying right now. Since he’s the only one of us who’s got a mate, he’s the logical choice as far as who I should ask. Then it dawns on me that if he continues, I won’t have anything to eat and that simply will not do. Sitting at my place at the table, I grab a steak for myself as well as a baked potato and begin slowly eating. I may not feel hungry per se, but I know I have to eat regularly to keep my gator happy. Otherwise, he wants to go hunting for prey.

“Did you explain about shifters at all?” he questions.

“Didn’t get the chance,” I grumble. Maybe I should’ve pushed the issue, but her words were so devastating to me, I couldn’t think beyond what she said.

“So, she doesn’t realize that she’s talking to Callie, who can now shift because of our mating,” he muses.

My head hits the table. At the rate I’m screwing all of this up, I’ll be a grouchy old gator exiled to the river permanently. I’ll become a cautionary tale to younger shifters about how to best handle telling your mate that you have the ability to shift into an animal, especially if your mate happens to be a human.

“Oh, fuck, what do I do?” I groan into the tabletop.

“For starters, quit your damn bellyaching and start acting like the apex predator you are, for fuck’s sake!” Kodiak yells. “I’ve already sent a text to Callie to let her know how you fucked everything up. Luckily for you , my mate likes Ariel, so she’s going to try and undo what you’ve done.”

A flicker of hope burns in my chest as I lift my head. “Really? Do you think it’s possible?”

“My mate managed to convince me to play Santa Claus every year for the kids at the refuge, what do you think?” he snarls.

I hide my grin because I know most of what he agrees to is because he’s so damn happy he’s going to be a father, he’d agree to fly to the moon and paint it if Callie wanted him to. “I think it’s more than possible,” I whisper, afraid to hope too much in case Callie’s powers of persuasion go on vacation or something.

She’s our mate, my gator grumbles. Even if she leaves, we will follow her and protect her. Change her mind.

Okay, he makes a good point. We can follow her to make sure she’s safe.

It’s not stalking if we’re mates. Right?

“You got a weird look on your face,” Kodiak observes. “Don’t do anything else stupid.”

I ignore him, chewing on another piece of steak. I barely notice as I swallow because my thoughts are centered on Ariel. Callie took her for a walk and they’re too far for me to hear their conversation. Should I follow?

Yes! My gator shouts. Go!

I rise to my feet and drop the utensils, striding toward the door. I think I’m slick and gonna pull it off until I see Spike. He’s got his arms folded across his chest and wears a scowl. He’s practically standing in the doorway to block me.

“Not happening.”

The fuck?

“My mate needs me,” I attempt to argue as my gator considers whether or not he can take down a dragon.

Smoke blows from Spike’s nose. “Not yet. Give Callie a chance to talk to her first.”

I turn an accusing eye on Kodiak. “You’re an asshole.” He told our pres, so I had to stay put. The bastard.

The bear looks gleeful. “I know you too well, Chomp.”

I flip him off in response.

Spike shoves his way inside and I take a few steps backward. He’s the only one my gator will concede to and that’s only because of his position as president.

“This is an attempt to help you, Chomp. Get your head outta your ass.”

Uh-huh. “She’s freaked out about the gator. I tried to show her,” I begin to explain.

Kodiak starts laughing. I shoot him a glare.

“She wasn’t ready,” Spike announces like I don’t already know that. “Be patient.”

“She rejected me,” I say with a snarl. My gator is so pissed but he’s also hurt. We both are. This feels worse than when I left my original congregation all those years ago, and that nearly destroyed me.

Kodiak shakes his head. “She didn’t reject you.”

“How the hell do you know?” I thunder at him. “You weren’t here.”

Spike pinches the bridge of his nose like we’re all irritating him. “None of you fuckers have any patience at all. It’s a fucking miracle that any of our businesses have repeat customers.”

“Says the dragon,” I snort. Glaring at Kodiak, I ask, “How do you know she didn’t reject me?”

He smirks while Spike grabs the last steak from the plate, flicks his fingers until they light, then he proceeds to burn the steak before he ingests it. “Because, Chomp,” Kodiak retorts, tapping his temple, “I’m chatting with my mate. Ariel is understandably distraught. She was brutally attacked then she witnessed you brutally decimating those fuckers.”

“So, there’s still hope?” I ask, my emotions bouncing all over the place. “Dammit, Spike, when you do that shit, it smokes up the whole fucking house.” I stomp my way over to the windows and jerk them open to air out the smell of the burned meat.

“It’s going to take time,” Spike says.

“And patience,” Kodiak interjects. “I want you to think about it objectively, Chomp. For at least a year or longer, she’s been under that fuckwad’s thumb, being abused in every way possible. Now, thanks to you, she’s free. She hasn’t been allowed to make any decisions of her own, so she won’t fully understand how fated mates work and you’re going to want her to choose you on her own. Yes, I know y’all are mates. I get that completely. But in this, you have to let her decide.”

“I might as well go ahead and build my exile sanctuary,” I mumble, causing both of them to start laughing hysterically. “Shut it, assholes,” I hiss, my gator taking over just a little.

“You can do this, Chomp,” Spike encourages. “It’s your mate.”

Kodiak grins. “The only one you got so don’t fuck it up anymore.”

“You know, I think I’m banning you from my fucking house, Kodiak.”

He doesn’t appear to care. It’s not a threat and he knows it.

I hear another vehicle approach and groan when I realize more of my club brothers have arrived. Great. What did Kodiak do? Call them all over to watch me make one mistake after another?

The fucking bear begins whistling a tune like this is fucking entertainment. “Kodiak,” I warn.

He lifts his hands. “You don’t wanna distract me. I’m focusing on my mate’s conversation.”

My gator chumpfs. He’s done with all this. I return to the table before somebody rips off the rest of my steak sitting on my plate and finish my meal, ignoring the house as it fills. It seems like a bad idea to invite all these shifters over at once, especially with Ariel’s reaction to my gator.

Spike senses my distress. “Hey, we’re not gonna complicate shit more for you. This is just support, brother.”

As much as I’m riled up and hating the situation, I also realize he’s right. They’re here for me. Every brother in the club, regardless of what type of shifter we are or our roots. That doesn’t matter and never has, not since we all patched in. Spike brought us together and gave us a home. A brotherhood. And more than that, a family.

When I think of it that way, I’m not nearly as agitated.

But the biggest part of this, now that I found Ariel, is that I want to share this family and the club with her. I can’t imagine my life from here on out without her in it. It’s like I’ve been walking in a daze, and nothing made sense. It’s been a fog that never lifted. But once she entered my life, that fog lifted, the sun shined on me, and my heart beat for her alone.

Wow. Intense. But I fucking love this feeling. I don’t want it to end. And that means that I have to fight for her, for us , even if we don’t exist as a couple yet. I’ll do everything in my power to convince Ariel we belong together, and if that means I take it slow, that’s what I’ll do.

And the part about my gator? We can come back to that later when she’s ready.

If we have to wait, we’ll wait, my gator grudgingly agrees.

Kodiak sinks onto the chair beside me. “It’s worth it, Chomp.”

I know. He doesn’t have to tell me that, but I nod, grateful he’s here even if he is a furry asshole.

“It’ll work out.”

“Because she’s my mate?” I guess.

“Yeah. Life has fucking been cruel enough to all of us. Our mates are the reward if you wanna look at it like that. They’re our soulmates. Worth fighting for, no matter what we have to go through.”

“I agree.” One hundred percent.

No matter what, I was all in.