Page 8

Eight

“C an you howl? Like actually howl?”

Jeremy couldn’t stop grinning. His mate had accepted his answers. He hadn’t messed this up beyond repair, as he’d been so sure he would. “I’ll demonstrate if you want. Not here, obviously.”

A minute after they’d finished dessert and paid the bill, a server hurried past their booth, her scent thick with overwhelm and stress. Jeremy glanced toward the front of the restaurant. The line was out the door, dinner rush in full swing.

“We should head out,” he said.

“Oh, okay.” She slid out of the booth and stood with obvious reluctance, but then an excited light found her eyes. She leaned close and whispered. “Will you howl for me outside?”

How she made such a request sound sensual, he had no idea, but suddenly he wanted to sweep her into his arms and kiss her breathless. He tugged her hand and grinned. “Let’s go for a drive.”

Out on the road he rolled down the windows, and her hair escaped her braid to blow around her face. She laughed. “What’re you doing?”

“I don’t want to hurt your ears.”

But there was too much traffic here. He didn’t want strangers to hear his wolf voice. Only Lucy. He turned onto a wide dirt road and drove about half a mile, until the houses had grown far apart, buffered by open fields. Then he pulled to the side and parked.

“Ready?” He grinned.

Lucy nodded.

First he gave a glad growl, loud and long. Lucy gasped. Then she launched herself across the center seat of the truck and kissed him. The steering wheel kept her from landing in his lap. His chest rumbled frustration at the confined surroundings, but they made do. The kiss lasted and deepened until they both had to break off and breathe.

“You really don’t mind that I’m a wolf.” He still could hardly trust it.

“Of course not,” she said. “As for the other thing, I’ll probably have more questions later, but for today I’m all asked out.”

Maybe this was how it worked for a wolf and his mate, but hadn’t Patrick said Nicole was cautious when he told her? Hadn’t Ezra and Trevor’s dad said the same of their mom in the stories Jeremy had heard since he was a pup? Well, Lucy wasn’t either of those women. She was Lucy. She was his mate and no one else’s.

“You know that thing we kept bumping into a few weeks ago?” Lucy said. “The thing that’s over for good?”

He nodded. Her eyes grew serious, but her scent remained bright and hopeful, lavender the highest note.

“That thing was a jerk I dated. We broke up in the spring because he was awful, and I finally saw it.”

“Okay,” he said when she paused.

“Well, just so happens he’s a vampire. I guess maybe some women wouldn’t want to date another apex-class guy, but…” She shrugged. “I’m cool with it. Unless the guy’s a jerk, but that has nothing to do with being an apex. As you have more than proven.”

Jeremy tried to follow all her words, but a fuse shorted out in his head at one specific word. He shook his head. A low rumble rose in his chest. One of those—people, right, vampires were people too—had dated Lucy. Had hurt Lucy. No wonder she’d been ready to believe the stereotypes about wolves.

“O…kay,” she said quietly. “Um, I should’ve asked this first, but is there an actual rivalry between y’all? Vampires and wolves?”

“No,” he snapped.

“Right.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. He wanted to grasp again the happiness of a minute ago. A car crawled down the road, missing washed-out dips, and the driver glanced into the truck cab as he passed them. Far out in one of the fields, a tractor rolled along, its engine deep and rumbling like a mechanical version of Jeremy’s wolf voice. Birds chirped, and insects rasped. Beside him Lucy’s breathing was nearly silent, soft and calming. He took her hand, rubbed circles on her palm with his thumb.

“I guess maybe a little,” he said at last.

“Uh-huh.”

She gave him a tolerant smirk, and the protective drive inside him began to subside. He squeezed her hand. “I wish you hadn’t got hurt by anybody. It’s not just that he’s a…” Nope, not going to say it. Not going to taste the word in his mouth.

“Yeah, me too. But I’m better, Jeremy. I’m getting better every day, every month that goes by. And—and really, forget about him. He’s not worth it. This is our time. And you’re going to howl now.” She leaned close again and murmured in his ear. “Just for me, because you’re my boyfriend and an extra hot wolf.”

Yes. He was hers, and she was his. Jeremy threw back his head and released all the happy certainty that filled him to bursting. His howl reverberated—across the fields, up into the sky, out toward the mountains. He was a wolf, and he had found the mate chosen for him, and in the years to come they would build a life alongside his pack. He looked forward to all of it, saw it clearly. When Lucy laughed and her scent brimmed with delight at his wolf voice, at what he was, Jeremy howled a second time just for the joy of it. But there was something he had to do, something he’d put off too long without understanding why.

It was time to tell his friends.

The guys might not believe him. Jeremy wasn’t sure he’d believe one of them if they claimed to have found their life mate.

Then again, they were no longer pups. He, Ezra, and Aaron were twenty-one this year, Malachi twenty-two. At nineteen, Trevor was the baby of their pack-within-the-pack. Aw, man, Trevor wouldn’t let him live this down—not that he’d found Lucy, but that he’d waited six weeks to tell them. It wasn’t like him to guard a secret through multiple weekend cookouts with the pack and hangouts with his buddies. Jeremy had always been the outburst-first-think-later type. But Lucy was different. Lucy was…well. Lucy was his mate.

The seventh Wednesday since he’d met Lucy, Jeremy still had no intention to tell his friends about her. Until that evening after dinner. Instead of gathering the gang, he loped over to George’s place. Across the broad yard that was more of a field, his way was spangled with lightning bugs and accompanied by katydids. He waved to George and Aaron, who were of course doing something in George’s precious garden. The old wolf waved back.

“He smells amped up,” Aaron said to George as if Jeremy’s wolf hearing didn’t pick up every word.

“Go find out why and report back.” George rumbled a laugh in his creaky wolf voice.

Aaron patted his guardian’s shoulder, then loped up to Jeremy with a grin. “Well?”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, which did nothing to hide his self-consciousness, since Aaron and George could smell it too. “Let’s run.”

It was all the invitation a wolf needed. Jeremy broke into a dash, and Aaron kept pace at his side. His friend’s gaminess was the scent of every wolf, calming and blended with Aaron’s signature of pine. Jeremy ran toward the foothills that backed pack land, then kept going until the ground grew steep. By then he and Aaron were twenty acres from the nearest wolf cabin. They slowed their pace and halted under a copse of oak trees just beginning to turn orange and red. Aaron followed Jeremy to an elder oak with a broad trunk, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, their bodies angled slightly away from one another to rest against the trunk.

“Okay,” Aaron said. “You smell stupidly happy, so tell me what’s up.”

“I met my mate, Aaron.” The words came easily now that he’d decided to talk about it.

Beside him, Aaron pivoted to stare. “You did? Really? You’re sure?”

“Oh yeah. There’s no question about it when you meet her. You just know. Your wolf heart knows. Your whole body knows.”

Aaron studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “I believe it. The way you smell right now… You’re more excited than I’ve ever smelled you before. But you’re also more settled.”

“Exactly!” Jeremy leaped to his feet and spread his arms wide under the canopy of oak branches. “It’s like the excitement’s bigger than my whole body, and I’m constantly holding it in so I don’t break out howling. And it’s like I know myself now, this big piece of myself that was a question mark before. Would I be a bachelor wolf like George, like William? Would I be a mated wolf like Patrick, a dad someday to a pup like Nathan? And now here she is, and all those questions just disappeared.”

“Well, tell me about her,” Aaron said.

Jeremy told his friend how he’d met Lucy, what sort of woman his mate was—levelheaded, persistent, sure of her own heart and mind, willing to tackle tough questions and listen to his answers. He didn’t tell Aaron about Lucy’s willingness to stick beside him when his blood phobia reared its stupid head. That was not only embarrassing but also felt private between him and his mate.

“I can’t believe she accepted it all,” Aaron said when Jeremy had told all he could think to tell.

“Well, like I said, she had some pointed questions. But yeah. She didn’t break up with me. For a minute I thought she might.”

Aaron winced and looked away.

“What?” Jeremy said.

“What if she does break up with you, man?” A tang of worry rose in Aaron’s scent.

“Why would she?” Jeremy shrugged. “Seems like we already got past the worst of it. I can’t possibly do anything more off-putting than announce she’s my life mate.” He grinned.

Aaron didn’t grin back.

Oh. Of course. Jeremy should’ve expected this. Aaron wasn’t always a worrier, but when he was, he really committed to the role. Jeremy sat on the ground again and bumped his friend’s shoulder.

“I’m not Trevor.”

“Obviously.”

“Of all of us, who else would get deathly ill over a breakup? Nobody but Trevor could pull that off with a straight face.”

“So if Lucy breaks up with you, you’ll—what, catch a cold instead?”

Jeremy fidgeted. He needed to assuage Aaron’s worry, but he didn’t want to talk about this either. His wolf heart gave a pitiful whine inside him at the very thought of Lucy leaving. Now that he’d met her, he could almost understand the severity of Trevor’s reaction to breaking up with his long-time girlfriend Kelsey last year. The poor wolf had been feverish and miserable for more than a week. But he’d recovered just fine, so Jeremy would too. If it came to that. Which it wouldn’t.

“Okay, look,” he said. “Let’s say you’re right and any wolf whose mate breaks up with him gets lovesick for a minute. Do you seriously think the chance to love Lucy isn’t worth the chance of losing her? Because I’m telling you right now, Aaron, it’s worth it to me. She’s worth it. I don’t even have to think about it, man. I know she is.”

Aaron swallowed hard and stared down at his broad hands. He rubbed his left knuckles with his right thumb. Finally he looked up. “You still smell the same, even talking about this. Excited and settled.”

“Yep.”

“Guess I can’t argue with that.” Slowly a grin took over his face, and the concern faded, allowing his pine scent toward the forefront again. “Wow, Jeremy. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“So have you told Trevor and Ezra and Mal, and I’m the last to know?”

“Nope. You’re the first.”

Aaron’s eyebrows shot up. Then he grinned again. “Let’s go. I want to see their faces.”