Salad on the Side

He shook his head. “When you see your mate, you know. Instantly. I don’t know if it’s some past life thing or some machination of the Universe we mere mortals don’t know about. You can choose not to claim your mate, but eventually the pressure to make the claim becomes too strong to fight.”

“We’re shifters,” I pointed out. “Does that mean we’re mere mortals?”

“We’re mortal. We can die and be killed. Dying just takes longer than for regular humans.” He lay down, feet over the arm of the couch, head in my lap. “Mates are connected from the moment they’re both in this world. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme nor reason to who ends up mated with whom. I don’t pretend to understand it. I only know I thought I was in love with Harok, but when I saw you for the first time, I didn’t even remember what he looked like. Love is human, and since shifters are part human, we feel that emotion. Mating is something deeper and stronger.”

“People talk about love at first sight,” I said. “Not the whole, oh, he’s cute, I want to fuck him kind of so-called love, but genuine, romantic, I want to spend my life with this person love.”

“Kind of the same thing.” He shrugged. “Maybe humans experience the mating bond too. They just don’t think of it that way, since mating is more of an animal behavior than a human one. Anyway, to Harriet your gender has little to do with her concern. She’s afraid loving anyone as deeply as she knows I can will weaken me. As Peacekeeper, she may be worried about the reaction within our pack and in the other packs to the announcement that our Alpha has a male mate, but it isn’t her primary concern.”

“I’m still getting used to the whole mate thing anyway.” I stroked his hair. The soft strands slipped through my fingers like silk and I resisted the urge to plunge both hands into it and just revel in the softness. Tobias might not have minded, but somehow I had the feeling the sensuality of playing with his hair would lead to wanting to touch other things. Right then, we didn’t need sex, we just needed to be quiet together.

“Me too.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Stay with me tonight, Kyle.” He nodded toward the window and I realized, to my surprise, that somewhere between our fucking and the phone call to Chal, the sun had nearly set. “I don’t want to fuck you or make love to you or whatever you want to call it. I just want you beside me when I fall asleep and when I wake in the morning.”

I’d lived with my last partner. Every night we’d gone to bed together and every morning we’d woken up beside each other. Sometimes we’d fucked, sometimes we’d just cuddled, sometimes we’d ignored one another completely. And for the entire time I lived with him, I’d never been fully comfortable being so close to him for so much time. There had been nights when I hadn’t even stayed in bed with him, but had slept on the couch and then returned to bed before he woke so he’d think I’d been there all along.

I’d thought I would be like that the rest of my life, not wanting to completely let anyone in, not wanting the utter closeness that came with being in love. Tobias had screwed that up pretty well, and I didn’t mind it a bit. I liked the thought of falling asleep beside him. Waking in the morning with the sun touching his gorgeous hair. Being there in the middle of the night if either of us needed comfort or—well, or anything else.

Tonight, Tobias needed me. Needed someone else to be the strong one for a while. His pack had never taken a hit like this and he blamed himself even though he hadn’t caused Suzannah’s kidnapping. He was Alpha and that meant anything happening within his pack or to any of its members was his responsibility.

And the fact he let me into his head enough to hear those thoughts showed just how much he trusted me. I refused to let him down.

“I’ll stay,” I said softly.