Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81208 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“You don’t want to?”
I feel her contentment, but not in the same way I could if we were mated. Then, it would be a visceral certainty. I’d know her mind and feel her body’s reactions, good and bad. Now, her arms around me and her soft sigh have made me pretty sure she’s happy where she is.
“No.” She shifts to look up at me, her pretty ocean eyes sparkling. “Can I ask you some questions?”
“Sure.”
“Why do I feel like we’ve been doing this forever?”
“You’re our mate. Our bodies are in tune with each other. They call out to each other. They crave and seek comfort in each other. Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
“Everything that’s happening is what you expect,” she explains, “But it’s the opposite of what I expect.”
I nod, understanding her confusion but also curious. “Did you not expect us at all?”
She folds her lips and stares at my chest. I stroke her hair, sensing she’s got a story to tell. “When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me about a dream she had before I was born. About a little girl and three bears.”
“Was that why she called you Goldie?”
“Yes,” she smiles. "That story used to make me feel so happy. I used to imagine what playing with bears would be like.”
“I guess you just found out,” I quip.
She swats my pec and rolls her eyes. “Not that kind of playing, perv. I was a kid. I meant rough and tumble play. Kids' stuff. Mom would tell me about the little girl and bears having fun and lying in the grass in a garden, made in the shape of a heart with pretty flowers all around.”
“And you liked the idea?”
“Of course.”
“So, you did know.”
“It was a dream. A dream like a storybook.”
“It was a prophecy,” I tell her. “A sign you just didn’t understand.”
“I don’t believe in prophecies,” she says. “Or at least, I didn’t. I used to feel so happy imagining the bears.”
“You knew we were out there all this time.”
She sighs and strokes my skin. “Remembering the bears made me feel less lonely.”
“What about being with the bears?”
She snuggles against me, and I pull her closer, hating that she has ever felt lonely. Not for the first time, I curse that we had to wait so long to find her. All the years that have passed seem like such a waste. “It shouldn’t feel so right,” she muses, “but it does.”
It really does.
My phone rings, interrupting the peace that had enveloped us. I ease away from Goldie, hating how my skin cools, but I can’t ignore it. It’ll be Hunter or Robert with an update.
Naked, I saunter out of the room and into the bathroom, wanting to protect Goldie from news that will more than likely be bad.
Hunter’s name flashes on the screen. “Yeah,” I bark.
“Evan?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“It’s arson. The place stinks of accelerant. The door’s gone. It must have started there.”
“Fuck. Wolves.”
“Robert thinks so. I agree.”
“Any evidence?”
He growls a low rumble that’s more bear than human. “No evidence, but who the fuck cares? We retaliate. It’s the only way.”
Retaliation has always been the only way. Hit first, or they’ll believe they have the upper hand, and that’s not something we can risk. My bear is snarling for revenge. They’ve attacked our mate. Even an indirect attack calls for blood. But my human side wants to revel in spending time with our mate. It wants everything we’ve been imagining for too long. It wants peace.
“Don’t do anything yet,” I tell Hunter. “Let’s talk back at the house.”
“Okay.”
I hang up, glancing down at my dick, which is still hard despite the less-than-sexy phone conversation.
Hunter will be able to tell. I won’t be able to hide what’s happened between me and Goldie, and no matter what I say about our next move with the wolves, he’s not going to listen.
22
GOLDIE
The conversation between Evan and Hunter sounds urgent. Evan takes himself into my bathroom and shuts the door, so all I can hear is the rumbling shadow of what’s being said. Hunter and Robert are at my store right now and whatever they’re discussing is centered around me. If it’s about my store, why the hell are they talking in private?
When Evan emerges, his face is grave.
“It was definitely arson,” he says. “They can smell accelerant there. The fire spread from the door and into the store.”
“You think someone set the fire on purpose?”
“It was started deliberately.”
My heart sinks, not because an accidental fire would have been any less devastating, but because someone out there intended to hurt me. Apart from the incident yesterday, I have no enemies. Why anyone would want to destroy my little store, to burn down my dream, is beyond me. Was that man from yesterday so angry with me that he did this?