Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
I fell asleep to her soothing me. Strokes of her fingers, the calm lub dub of her heart, her words. Now I would soothe her, hold her, and let her continue to sleep in my hold. One hand slid up and down her bare back, the other played with the long strands of her hair.
She was safe. She loved me. I inhaled her scent. Yes–there it was–my scent mingled with hers now.
The scratch I gave her last night was enough to mark her.
She was my marked mate.
Shit. I hadn’t meant to do it.
It should be perfect, the connection we now had. Especially since she now knew I was a shifter. Except it wasn’t.
Looking down, I saw the scrape on her neck. The little scab. I’d marked her without her consent. Without her knowing what carrying my mark meant. Hell, she hadn’t even known I was a shifter at the time.
I needed to explain everything, but was she ready to hear that I’d marked her for life? That my wolf had claimed her and would never let her go?
She was human. She wouldn’t understand how deep this thing ran for us. To her, if she wasn’t ready to commit to forever with me, it could feel suffocating.
She stirred in my hold, sniffed.
I stilled.
“Morning,” she murmured then froze.
Fuck. The peace and calm that should be our new existence was gone.
She remembered.
I didn’t let her up, not that she was trying to move. My hands began their caresses again.
“Morning, baby.”
“Last night was… um, crazy.” She rubbed her cheek across my bare chest.
My dick stirred because she was conscious, but I ignored it. This wasn’t the time to fuck. Well, it was always time to fuck my mate, and especially now that she was marked, but there were things to talk about first.
“You have questions,” I assumed.
She tried to push up, but I was afraid she was going to leave, so I slid her off me, and I shifted her so we were both on our sides facing each other. Reaching down, I grabbed the sheet and pulled it over us.
Her eyes still looked sleepy, but they were bright when they met mine.
“So you’re a wolf.”
“Yeah.”
“You were born that way?”
“It’s the only way,” I replied.
“My parents are shifters in a Nebraska pack. I mentioned my sister. She’s obviously also one. And her pups.”
“Pups?”
“Kids.”
“And the guy who attacked her?”
I nodded.
“And everyone here at Wolf Ranch?”
“The guys. And Willow. The other women are human like you.”
“Yes, I gathered.” She licked her lips, swallowed. “Were you going to tell me?”
I sighed, reached out, and stroked her hair. I couldn’t resist. “Yes. I’m sorry, but I was waiting until… until the right moment.” I pushed her onto her back and came up over her, my body alongside hers. “Every moment was right because, fuck, baby, this between us is perfect. But how do you tell someone something so big? How do you dig yourself out of keeping such a big secret?”
She glanced away and bit her lip.
“It’s forbidden for humans to know about our kind.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you.” I stroked my palm up her bare back. “Are you scared of me? Freaked out?”
She shook her head. “I said last night that we’re okay. I still mean it.”
I exhaled and closed my eyes for a moment, so relieved she hadn’t changed her mind. Should I tell her about being my marked mate? About me being an enforcer?
I wanted to come clean–with everything. It was time.
“I have a lot to explain.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “Uh, yeah.”
That made me chuckle, and I leaned down to kiss her. “I work here at Wolf Ranch. I’m one of the ranch hands. You know that. I live here in the bunkhouse. I did come here when I was eighteen, as I said. I’m also an enforcer.”
She blinked. “Like the mafia?”
“Kind of. Like a representative of the Shifter Council to mete out justice.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“The Shifter Council is like a group of shifter wolf judges. Offenses are brought before them, and they deliver sentences to shifters for their transgressions.”
“Why can’t the people who do things wrong just go to jail?”
“Because shifters could easily break out. We have superhuman strength. A cell wouldn’t hold a shifter–and then, if one did break out, our secret would be revealed. Humans can’t know about us.”
“So what kind of sentences does the Council deliver? Like you as an enforcer beats them up? Breaks their kneecaps?” Her look of distaste made my gut churn.
My heart thudded in my chest. I was going to lose her over this. Just like I lost my pack and family.
Maybe I should have waited to tell her. But no–better to find out now that we can’t work than later.
“It’s, uh…usually a capital punishment kind of thing.”
Lyssa gasped. “So an enforcer is an executioner?” she whispered the last.