Page 30 of The Healer (The Blood of Legends #2)

Chapter Thirty

TOO SOON

R hys had just yanked on fresh jeans when Lona bolted into their bedroom and shut the door behind her. At a knock on the front door, she had raced across the wooden floor. Still in a towel, she was in no state to meet people.

Her cheeks flushed red, and she whipped off the towel to dig in her bag. “Um…there’s a—”

“Noah.” Rhys grinned, peeled on a T-shirt, and stole a quick kiss as she clipped on a bra. “Hurry, I want you to meet him.” Careful to hide her nudity from his beta, he rushed out to greet him, yanking him into a barrel hug.

“Whoa. You should go away more often.” Noah laughed and slapped Rhys on the back.

“This place is stunning. Are we rolling this out to all homes?”

Noah nodded. “In the process. Quite a few of our males are learning new trades. We bought a secondhand grader, and Reed is on a course to learn how to repair it when it breaks down. So, I saw you weren’t alone.” He sniffed. “Bear?”

Rhys jerked back and faced Noah, his jaw falling slack. “Ilona’s human.” He glanced at the bedroom door, his mind whirring.

“Wait, are you saying you mated a human and not a bear shifter?” Noah chuckled as if Rhys was teasing him. “I smell bear and not yours. She’s a Sitka or a sun bear.”

Rhys staggered and leaned against the counter. “Despite Amos being a Sitka, what you’re implying isn’t possible. She only has a quarter shifter blood in her.”

“I’ll call Sans and ask him to visit as soon as he can.” Noah whipped out his phone and dialed.

Black spots circled Rhys’s vision, and a wave of weakness slew his knees. He had hoped, but still, the chance had been borderline impossible.

“He’s on his way.” Noah nudged his head at Lona who opened the bedroom now in her jeans and a T-shirt.

Rhys stared at her bare feet, loving her tiny toes. When Noah coughed, he whipped his head up and smiled. “This is Noah, Noah this is my Ilona.”

“Hi.” She waved. “Thanks for this.” After gesturing to the cabin, she shoved her hands into her pockets and tugged the waistband of her jeans down, flashing a fair bit of skin.

“Coffee?” Rhys threw his arm across Noah’s shoulder and steered him away.

“I’m still waiting for the coffee he promised me.” She hefted herself onto the counter and swung her feet. “We could be here a while.”

“Right, you minx, how do you operate this?” The lights flickered across the coffee machine’s screen—too advanced for Rhys.

“Easy.” She leaped off, flipped the top, scooped in the coffee beans, added water until it said eight cups, then tapped a button. The grinder hummed for a few seconds before the gurgle of water and the aroma of ground coffee filled the air.

“Show off.” He pressed a kiss to her temple while Noah dragged a bar stool from under the island.

Joining him, Rhys snuck glances at Noah, wondering what he thought of Lona. Having assumed the role of hostess, she searched for mugs, sugar, creamer, then placed the platter of salmon in front of them, but not before stealing a sliver. He loved her here, with him.

“We’re going couch shopping, Noah.” While bouncing on her toes with drying hair curling around her face, she beamed. “Tomorrow, I’ll call Heartstone. Shit.” With a squeal, she darted out of the house.

Rhys slid off the barstool to follow.

The bang of the car door and the slapping of her bare feet on the porch preceded her return. “Just have to text Gran and Evie.” Her gaze turned molten when she trailed it over Rhys. “I wonder why I forgot.”

“Sans is on his way.”

She gasped as her fingers flew over the phone’s keys. “I’m not ready. What if I think of something to ask him later?”

“So, take his number.” Noah shrugged while eating his fourth sliver of salmon.

She smiled. “Like duh.”

“Well, hello.” Jase thumped the door frame and sauntered in, patting Rhys on the shoulder as he strolled past. “Nice to meet you, Ilona.” He leaned his elbows on the counter and picked at the salmon.

Sighing, Rhys found a plate and added salmon to it before none were left for his…mate. Lunar, he would need to tell her soon. He had to first make sure she wasn’t transitioning. “Has Callie behaved? Do I need to have another word with her?”

Ilona stilled while pouring the coffee, but he flashed her a warm smile when she met his gaze.

“Sawyer’s been on her ass without getting himself killed. He’ll be glad you’re back. She doesn’t listen to him.”

Rhys snorted. “I was lucky she listened to me. Seems to me all Devereaux women are stubborn.”

“Hey.” Lona slid his coffee to him, already with sugar and cream the way he liked it.

“Worth it, though.” He smirked, wishing he could bury himself in her again. It had to be the full moon. Although, his past festivals hadn’t led him to this level of desperation. “And Aiden?”

“Hasn’t come up for air, but he did ask for Will’s hand in mating.”

Rhys jerked back, almost spilling his coffee. “What?”

Noah laughed. “Yeah, me too. I damn near swallowed my tongue.”

“Mating? As in marriage?” Lona’s eyes were wide, and her lingering smile promised to dimple her cheek if she let it fully form.

“Yup,” Jase answered while adding a sixth sugar to his coffee.

“Will there be a ceremony?” She cradled her cup to her chest and waited.

“Nope, the union between shifters is an intimate one.” Noah sighed, then cast Rhys an arched brow when he nudged him with his knee.

Fuck, no, not now. Rhys wasn’t ready to lose her.

“Quit bumping me,” Noah hissed.

“Shut up,” Rhys growled.

“Yeah, the pack gets informed afterward.” Jase slurped his coffee unaware that the blood in Rhys’s veins had chilled. “The exchange of blood has to happen followed by consensual sex under a full moon.”

Stiffening, Rhys studied her expressive face, hoping she didn’t put two and two together but expecting her to. She was intelligent, his Lona.

She gasped and tugged on her T-shirt’s collar, exposing the faded bite mark. “Rhys?” Her voice rose at the end of his name, and her eyes widened. Then her breath shuddered out of her. “But…it makes no sense. Wait, consensual sex? I wouldn’t have done it with Dane, and I didn’t give him my blood. You had a drop, nothing more.”

Tension thickened the air, and a breeze swept through the open door to chill the room.

“Thanks for the coffee.” Noah and Jase scattered, abandoning him to his fate.

Rhys waited for their footsteps to fade and the start of a car engine. “When I swiped my blood across your palm, do you remember how you reacted?”

She nodded, but the grip she had on her cup didn’t lessen.

“It confirmed we were meant to be, which I knew the moment I met you.”

“I don’t do matings, or insta-love, or any of that romantic crap.” She winced. “Okay, I enjoy them in romance novels but not in real life, Rhys.”

“Shifters do.” He slumped. “I’m sorry. I lost control. I bit you knowing the consequences, knowing you didn’t have a say. This is on me.”

“Is it…temporary, you know, mates for a season? That sort of thing.” She put her coffee mug down and splashed water on her face at the farm sink. Facing him, she held her fingers to her flushed cheeks.

“No, it’s…forever.”

She groaned, offering her back as she gripped the counter. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When it was confirmed. I didn’t want to worry you when all I had was a drop of your blood.”

She gripped the counter. “How do you know for sure it’s done?”

“Other shifters smell me on you, and you on me.”

“Me?” she squeaked, twisting to look at him.

“You bit me.” He grinned, relieving the moment, then hardened at the memories.

She narrowed her gaze on him. “You don’t seem upset?”

“To be stuck with the woman I love?” He laughed. “Nope, never, no way.”

Her face paled. “What?” she squeaked and slithered down the cupboard door, hitting the floor with her ass. Sobbing, she buried her face in her hands.

Darkness twisted his soul, and he sat to tug her onto his lap. She didn’t resist when he wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t cry, Lona-love. It hurts me when you’re sad.”

“Sad?” she hiccupped, then wiped her cheeks. She wiggled until she faced him, spread her thighs on either side of his, and rose to cup his cheeks. “I love you too.” Her smile was tremulous.

He jerked, banging the back of his head against the cupboard. “You do?” Grinning like a fool, he crushed his mouth across hers, unable to smother the joy barreling up his chest. Breaking the kiss, he tightened his hold, needing her softness against every inch of him. “About damn time.”

“Yeah, yeah, stubborn, remember.”

“Hello? Oh, there you two are.” Sans hobbled into the house and assumed a bar stool, helping himself to the salmon and an unfinished coffee. “Noah said you wanted to see me.”

“It’s like one big family?” she whispered in Rhys’s neck, the brush of her lips across his skin sparking shivers.

“Massive family.” He rose to his feet, taking her with him. “There’s more.”

“More?” She arched to meet his gaze.

“Your cravings, Lona.”

“What about them?” Her eyes widened, she gaped, then beamed. “It’s linked to Dane’s blood? I knew it.” She punched her fist in her palm.

“Sans, this is Amos’s granddaughter, Ilona.”

The older man slapped his thigh. “Well, I never.”

“The few shifter doctors we have form a community.” Rhys led her to the stool and lifted her onto it, sliding the small plate of salmon across to her. “Lona’s grandmother is human, Sans. Is it possible for Lona to transition?”

“Well,” he smacked his lips after a sip of Jase’s coffee, “she has the shifter genes from Amos. It would have to take a dose of alpha blood as a catalyst.”

“And vampire saliva?” She stoked her scar, now but a silvery line.

“And my blood?”

“Are you saying she has had two alpha blood coursing through her veins?” Sans shook his head. “Sorry, my dear, at the next full moon, you will shift. The first time is more painful the older you are.”

Rhys growled and wrapped his arm across her collarbone to hold her against his chest. “Anyway to ease it?”

“More of your blood will help strengthen the connection. You mentioned cravings, give into them. You’ll feel a pressure in your chest, as if something wants out, then your skin will ripple like shifting sand dunes.”

“What?” Fear darkened the green of her eyes. “Do you know what I will shift into?”

“Amos is bear, as is Dane and Rhys. Odds are, so are you. It’s hard to know for sure though. Like a melting pot. Look at George, a polymorph in a wolf pack.” Draining the mug, Sans thumped it down. “If that’s what you needed me for?”

“There’s more. Ilona, ask away.”

She clasped Rhys’s arm pinning her to him. “I’m reeling. Do you mind if I gather my thoughts then find you, doctor to doctor?”

Sans grinned. “Followed Amos’s footsteps, did you? Well, I’ll be hog swaddled. Sure. Rhys’s got my number.”

She reached across the counter to pat his arm. “I’ll treat you to apple pie.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Sans grinned, slid off the stool, and scampered out.

“Want to talk about it?” Rhys pressed a kiss to her temple.

“No, let me mull it over. Right now, I need to focus on something mundane. Let’s go couch shopping.”

He stared into her shimmering eyes and stole a kiss. “Leather, you say?”

She nodded, slipped from his arms, and hurried to their bedroom. “Want me to bring your boots?”

“Please.” He grinned and succumbed to an air fist pump. She wasn’t leaving him.