Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 23597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23597 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 94(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
I’d known her for less than a day, but it didn’t matter how much time had passed. I didn't have to say one word or her to know she was mine. Forever.
The connection between fated mates was that clear, that strong. That powerful.
She had now forever changed me in the best of ways.
I leaned in and kissed my mate, running my nose against the side of her throat where my mark would forever be. I growled low, her scent everything I’d ever need in my life. She’d marked me just as I’d marked her, and although it wasn’t on my body where anyone could see, she’d branded me deep inside where I’d forever be hers.
I may also be more animal than human, but my girl understood that on the very lowest level of our souls. She accepted that.
She loved me for it, and I’d promise her with my last breath that I’d make sure she never know a day where she wasn’t claimed.
Epilogue One
Penny
Four weeks later
I didn’t need to take a test to know the truth. As a shifter, I felt it. I knew as soon as his seed had taken inside me. And I knew he was fully aware that he’d knocked me up. I could see it in his eyes, watched it in the way his nose flared when he inhaled, because I knew. And then he’d look at my rounded belly, and I’d watch his canines elongate, see his animal flicker at the surface.
He was pleased, so fucking pleased I smelled that scent pour off him like a drug.
He made these deep, harsh noises, warning sounds that were meant for other males even though we’d be alone. I didn’t even know if he was aware he did them. He was just so primal, so animalistic, his human side submissive when it came to his shifter genes, that this all came so naturally to him.
But despite knowing I was pregnant with Kasias’s young, I still bought a pregnancy test. I still wanted to hold that little stick and see the confirmation on the screen. My human side needed it, and so I appeased her.
I peed on that little plastic stick, alone in the cabin I now shared with my mate, and waited for the test to be complete. I was nervous, and I had no idea why. I knew I was pregnant, yet it was like this human ritual moving through me.
After the first night we met, the night I found my mate, was in full-blown mating heat, and lost my virginity, everything in my life had gone at warp speed. Kasias refused to let me leave, told me I was his and that meant he wanted me by his side always. I wanted that too, the fated mates pull too strong to deny. I felt like I knew him better than I knew myself, our connection, the electricity bouncing between us, was tangible. And it had grown every day. We’d become closer, stronger, the bond undeniable and unbreakable.
I moved in the very next day, told my parents about us, which they were happy I’d found my other half, and started my life with Kasias.
I’d never been so happy, so completely and utterly consumed by someone in my entire life. I could have never imagined what it would feel like to finally find my fated mate, but having Kasias in my life blew my expectations right out of the damn water.
And now a part of Kasias was inside me. I smelled him surrounding me, on my skin, my hair, so deep in me he’d never leave. And being pregnant with his baby meant that scent was doubled, intensified. His mark had ensured no male would dare come close to me unless they had a death wish. But being pregnant with his baby? It was like I wore this massive neon sign that said HIS and STAY THE FUCK BACK.
I picked up the test when I waited longer than I needed to for the results, and although I knew the truth already, seeing those two pink lines in the little display window had my breath leaving me.
I didn’t know how long I stood in the master bathroom staring at the test, but I’d been so engrossed that I hadn’t heard Kasias come in. I sensed him then, standing in the doorway of the bathroom, and I slowly turned around, the stick in my hand, my heart racing. He stared at me intently, those dark eyes penetrating me.
He inhaled, growled, then he was right by me, taking the test from my hand and setting it down, pulling me into his embrace, and kissing the sense right out of me.
“We knew you were pregnant already,” he growled against my lips, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist.