“It’s a shifter thing.” With a grunt, he hopped to the next platform. “The whole damn lot of them are obsessed with finding their perfect match. The other half of their soul, the one person in all the world, ordained by fate, etcetera etcetera.”
“Seriously?” Honey sounded taken aback, or possibly she was just out of breath from all the jostling. “Surely they can’t really believe that. Notallof them.”
“You’d be surprised. For freaks who spend half their time scratching fleas, they’re a sappy bunch.”
“Oh.” Honey was silent for a few moments. “Buck?”
“I know, I know.” Buck scrambled one-handed down an angled rope net, reaching blessed ground at last. He let Honey slide off his shoulders, though he kept an arm round her to make sure she didn’t collapse in a heap. “The kids have this crazy idea that we’re fated mates.”
“Um.” Honey’s face was very close to his. Her tongue flicked out, moistening her lower lip. “Yes. And I may have… accidentally…agreed.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know what they were talking about!” Even in the dim twilight, he could see she was blushing furiously. She pushed away from him, tugging her shirt straight. “They said that they knew my secret, and I thought they’d worked out myactualsecret! So I begged them not to tell anyone, and they said they wouldn’t, but only if I agreed to let them help, and—well, by the time I figured out that there was some kind of mistake, I was up a tree without a ladder. They seemed to think that if you had to rescue me, it would be… um, romantic.”
“And it didn’t occur to you to correct their misapprehension?”
“I didn’t exactly have the chance. They ran off before I could call them back.” Honey smoothed her hair behind her ears, regaining more composure. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop looking like the girls grilled your puppy. Kids always get the silliest notions. I’ll talk to them. It’ll be fine.”
“No,” he grated out. “It won’t. You told them we’re mates.”
“Well… I’ll just explain that I was wrong. That we had a talk, and it turns out you don’t feel the same way about me.”
“It doesn’t work like that.” He started stalking back toward the camp. “Shifters recognize their fated mate at first sight. It can’t be mistaken for anything else. The moment they make eye contact, they just know.”
“What?” Honey caught up with him, falling into step at his side. “You mean, fated mates are actually real?”
“Maybe. Yes. I don’t know.” Buck rubbed his forehead, feeling the beginning of a headache. “Look, I’m not sayingIbelieve in all this instalove crap. But shifters do. Once they lock onto someone, that’s it. They’ll go to hell and back to claim their mate.”
“Claim? How?”
He shot her a look. “Give you one guess.”
Honey’s puzzled expression persisted for a second, then her eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” The conflict between his own muddled emotions and the motherloving mutt’s pure, smug joy was turning into a full-blown migraine. “And it’s more than just physical, with shifters. More than marriage, even. Shifters form a psychic link with their mates. No mistakes. No take backs. No divorce. Joined mind and soul, now and always, forever and ever, motherloving amen.”
At least Honey looked more horrified than excited by this prospect. “But… what if it doesn’t work out?”
“No idea. Sucks for all involved, I guess.”
A warning bite of pain in his arm. Buck tried to ignore it, but the pressure increased to the point where he could practically feel the bone splinter.
“Allright,” he said under his breath. “All right, you damn mutt. I’ll tell her.”
“What?” Honey sucked in her breath, studying his face. “I’ve seen you look like that before. Your—I mean, the stormwolf is talking to you, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t call it talking, but yeah. Motherlover’s got definite opinions on all this.” The pain ebbed as he spoke. “It’s certain that fated mates alwaysdowork out. To be fair, it might not be wrong about that. I’ve seen a lot of shifters meet their mates. They were all utter morons about it, and I have no idea how the women involved didn’t snap and beat their supernatural would-be Romeos over the head with a shovel… but the mated couples I knowarehappy. Disgustingly so.”
Honey digested that in silence for a few steps. “I guess if people can turn into animals, I shouldn’t be surprised at anything. But it still seems… well, unbelievable. That soul mates can be real. How does a shifter know when they meet that special person?”
“No idea.” He shrugged, as offhand as he could manage. “Pheromones, probably.”
He didn’t dare look at her, but out of the corner of his eye, he could tell that she was looking athim; sidelong, speculatively.
Please don’t ask,he silently prayed.Please don’t ask, please don’t ask…
“Buck?” she started, and his stomach sank. “Do you thinkyouhave a—”
