“What about children?” I hadn’t meant to just blurt it out like that. We were hardly in a position to go straight to getting pregnant and what that would mean for our future. But that didn’t seem to stop me.
We were talking about mates, and that was enough to take in. It was a word I’d heard before, obviously, but not in this context. He knew from the moment he smelled me that I was his. And really, if I looked back objectively, I knew he was mine almost instantly too. I didn’t actively smell him or anything like that, but I knew. Deep down, I knew.
And then there was the small fact that he was sometimes a bear. Not the big, cuddly, hairy, gay man kind of bear. Nope. He was a full-on, walk through the woods, steal people’s bird feeders, and sleep all winter kind of bear.
And really, I wasn’t sure if his variety of bear was the kind that liked nuts and seeds, or if they ate meat. Did some bears eat meat? I really needed to brush up on my bear knowledge.
But in any case, he was a furry bear, and I was just me—all human all the time. And that, in itself, was a whole lot to take in. And now, I was just asking about children as if that was a normal, everyday conversation for someone you met less than a week ago.
“Do you mean children between the two of us?”
I nodded, not trusting myself not to babble on about how I didn’t need to have children, and it was okay if he didn’t want them… and all sorts of other excuses I’d given to other dates in the past when it was all hypothetical. Only now, it didn’t feel hypothetical, and I wasn’t sure not having kids was a choice I’d want to make. Which was a legitimate thing to feel, but also not something Carlton had given me any reason to worry about.
“Well, the good news is shifters make babies the same way as humans. Two people who love each other very much…”
And now my cheeks were on fire. I wasn’t even sure why. I wasn’t one to get embarrassed by sex, but in this context, I suddenly was.
“Did you want me to give you a diagram, or maybe show you firsthand?”
Oh gods. I buried my head in my hands. There was nothing less sexy than a birds-and-the-bees diagram. But also, showing me sounded pretty darn good. “Why are you…?” I shook my head. “I do know how to make a baby. I meant, can we have children? Like, does it work with me being human and all. Is that a thing that can happen?”
I’d hate to be the reason Carlton didn’t have a family. I could tell just by the way he was with the kittens that he was going to be an amazing father, and if he was with me, maybe he couldn’t have that. I wasn’t sure I’d be okay with my humanness getting in the way of that for him.
“Yes, I can have cubs with you.” He took both my hands in his. “And I’d like to grow a family with you.
“Cubs? Like they’d come out furry?” There would be no way to hide that from our neighbors.
Carlton shook his head, a playful smile on his face. “Can you even imagine having to tell a toddler not to let humans see them shift?”
“Toddlers are notoriously shitty at listening.” It was true. “Does that mean they don’t shift that young?”
There was so much I needed to learn about my mate. Mate. Now that I had the word for who he was for me, it felt right and natural.
“Nope, not until their teens.”
That was a relief.
“And if we had children together, they might or might not be bears. We wouldn’t find out until they hit puberty.”
“Are you okay with a child who isn’t a bear?” Way for me to find yet another thing to worry about.
“Any cub I had with you is a cub that belongs in our family.”
His sweetness was just on overload.
The conversation in the bagel place with the nosy old woman came back to me. “So… mating… that’s what that lady in the coffee shop was talking about when she said something was missing?” In this context, that entire interaction was so much clearer.
“Yeah, I felt bad not telling you then, but it wasn’t really the place to talk about bear stuff. There were too many people there, and I couldn’t exactly do a show-and-tell with my beast.”
“Because you’d be arrested for getting naked or because they’d throw you in a zoo?”
“All of the above.”
“How did she know?”
“She sensed our mating bond and then reminded me that maybe I should do something about mate marking you.” He half shrugged.
“Mate marking?”
He’d mentioned it before in his super-abbreviated shifters 101 talk.
“Will it hurt?” It wasn’t a deal breaker if it did. I wanted to know what I was getting into, though.
“Honestly, I can’t say with any certainty. I’ve never been marked before. But if it does, I can’t imagine it would be for long.”
I loved how completely honest he was with me about it. He could’ve been like the parent ahead of me at the dentist during my last cleaning. They kept telling their kid that the filling wouldn’t hurt. And maybe technically it didn’t, but the shot of novocain sure did, and I heard the second they administered it. I’d rather know.
“I’ve been friends with people who got mated, and they told me it was beautiful and the best thing that ever happened to them,” he explained. “Not one mentioned that it caused pain. I suspected that would come up, but I never asked to know for sure.”
The more I thought about it, the sillier the question felt. Why would people get mated if it hurt? I mean, sure, there’s the whole ‘forever is better than marriage’ part to it. But asking someone to go through pain for that seemed almost counterproductive. Right?
“Even if it was the worst pain in the world, I’d still want to do it,” I said.
“Even papercut-in-salt-water pain?”
“Absolutely. I was thinking maybe we could go home, and you could mark me?” I watched his face carefully. My mate should be one of those professional poker players. I couldn’t get a tell from him to save my life. “Oh, was I being insensitive? Does your bear need to be out here?”
He shook his head. “No, I just thought... Never mind. Let’s get these little guys gathered up and go.”
“I’d love nothing more.
Once home, I opened the door, let the kittens down, and walked inside.
“I probably should have clarified before—there’s a reason why I wanted us to mate here,” I said.
Both of his eyes were fixed on mine.
“See this spot right here?” I walked over to the couch and tapped one cushion. “This is where you sat the first time you came over. And you see this?” I walked over to a picture frame that he had asked me about. “This was when you showed an interest in my family.” And on like that I went, showing him all the ways, perhaps minutely, that this place reminded me of him and why I wasn’t going to give up that part of it.
I stopped babbling and looked up at him, a softness to his face. “What?”
“I’d been concerned that being human, you might not feel as I do, that you liked me well enough, but maybe you didn’t and might not ever feel the pull between us as strongly as I do.” He cupped my cheek. “And now… all of this… with you looking around your space and seeing me… I see fully that you…”
I sealed my lips to his, effectively ending the conversation. It was a nice one, not a topic I wanted to ignore, but if he didn’t have his hands on me in the next ten seconds, I was going to full-on bust.
We stayed there, kissing each other in a way that we communicated all of our feelings without a single word. Kissing turned into hands wandering, turned into Carlton carrying me to my bed and making sweet love to me. And as his orgasm shot through him and I was in the throes of my own, there was a sharp instantly fleeting pain where his partially shifted claw marked me as his.
I could feel the mating snap into place. The feeling was more than joy, though there was that. It was more a sense of completeness.
“I love you, Carlton.”
He collapsed on me, my knot connecting the two of us together physically.
“I love you, Theo. I love you.”