I shivered in delight at the thought.
“Okay, he’s got Stitch and his bookbag. Is that all he needs?” Mitchell asked me as he walked our son to the door.
“Yes. Are you certain you’re okay to walk him there yourself?”
Mitchell rolled his eyes. “Larry and his mom are walking with us, so I’m hardly taking him there by my lonesome.”
I couldn’t help myself. It had only been two days, and everything was going so perfectly that I was just waiting for a snag to come up.
“I know the way, Daddy,” Neal said. “I won’t let him get us losted.”
“Okay,” I said, bending down to kiss the top of his head. I palmed the door open and followed them out into the corridor. Shanelle was just coming out of their quarters with Larry, three doors further along the corridor, on the opposite side. I gave Mitchell a quick peck on the lips. “I’ll try to make it home for lunch,” I told him.
“Okay,” he replied breathlessly, his hand reaching for mine. I took it, giving his hand a quick squeeze before letting go. I knew if I didn’t, I’d stand there until it got awkward, and we’d all be late.
“Hi, Mitch! Bye, Joe!” Shanellle called out.
“Joe, really?” I heard my mate tease her. “He doesn’t seem like a Joe to me.”
My mate,I thought dreamily, my feet practically floating as I hurried down the corridor to work. There was no one to cover for me until the end of the week, but then I’d be able to spend time getting to know my mate better. We were sexually compatible, and we liked each other, but it was too soon to call it love. During that week off, we’d nurture the seeds of our affection and help them grow. I was still daydreaming about the way his fiery strands looked between my fingers when I arrived at my section.
Talk about putting a dampener on; if anything could kill a good mood, the penal block was it. I looked forward to the day when I earned a promotion, hopefully then moving over to a more pleasant security position. Perhaps even one where I got to work on the bridge!
“So, I hear you got matched!” Klora got up from his seat in front of the monitors and clapped me on the shoulder. “Congratulations! You two start planning the wedding and honeymoon yet?”
I stared at him. How could I have forgotten! I’d seen other colleagues get matched and heard about the wedding ritual followed by some sex filled vacation they took somewhere exotic.
“Not yet,” I said, not wanting to admit that we’d physically mated already but I hadn’t yet claimed him. I inwardly winced, feeling as if I’d misstepped. What Mitchell must be thinking of me! Though truly, he’d mainly been concerned with getting his training started, so perhaps it had also slipped his mind at the moment.
“Well, best get on it. It takes time to put these things together unless you want one of them package deals where you just show up in stuff you buy off the rack.”
I was clueless about what Klora was talking about, yet again.
“I will broach the subject at lunch.”
“Good thinking, Batman.” He glanced across the hall where our female prisoner was housed. “Hey, you heard the latest about her?”
“Um, no. What?”
“Nothing in our briefing yet, but word is that Sachuu put the wind up the FBI’s sails.”
I really did wish that Klora would stop using so many human idioms. It made it hard to unravel his meaning.
“So,” Klora continued, “supposedly they are trying to get in some cadaver dogs to go over both houses and the highways between.”
“Cadaver dogs? These dogs sniff out the dead?”
Klora nodded. “Yep. There was this episode ofBoneswhere…”
He prattled on, and I tuned him out, my mind returning to the idea of a wedding between Mitchell and myself. We were already legally mated, or married as he called it, so this would purely be ceremonial. But where would he like to have our ceremony? Who would he like to invite for his half of the guest list? Did he even want a ceremony? My heart twinged at the thought that he would not like to ceremonially tie himself to me. I longed for us to be together in all ways. I knew it was the mating drive making me feel everything about our relationship so keenly at the moment, but that fact did not change that feel it, I did. I would have to let him know that I very much wanted us to do the wedding and mooning the honey.
“He’ll only leave you in the end,” Linda cackled, having eavesdropped on our conversation.
“Shut up! No one asked you!” Klora said. “Stupid woman,” he muttered under his breath. “I thought I’d put her back on mute.” He reached over and pressed the button on the console that activated the sound dampeners on her cell.
I knew she was speaking nonsense. Mylos mated for life, and once established, our bond would be permanent for him, too.
I smiled at Klora. “You should come to dinner and meet him. He’s the cutest looking human I’ve ever seen. His hair is like flame and he has these little brown dots across his nose.”
