"Go ahead. It's a mess anyway."
He carefully began to pluck apart the tangled plait. As Gio separated the thick, heavy strands, her hair fluffed out around her face, lending it a gentle softness.
Gio wet a smaller towel and smoothed it down the side of her face, wiping away blood and grime. Max half closed her eyes like a cat being petted.
He was losing himself in the task now. It wasn't just cleaning her up, it was also the glory and joy of being able to touch her, smoothing back her hair, running his hand down the soft curve of her neck and shoulder.
It was no longer a hypothetical that he might eventually love this woman, he thought. There was no way he could possiblynotlove her after seeing her strength and courage on the arena floor. Seeing her stand up for her clan and the people who depended on her, even in the face of resistance.
As he brushed her damp hair back from her forehead, she blinked her eyes open and looked up into his face—and Gio was rocked to the bottom of his soul by what he saw there.
He was so stunned that he actually fell back, nearly sliding off the edge of the tub onto the floor. He caught himself with one hand, still dazed.
Max blinked, coming back to herself from her drowsing state. She reached out to steady him. "Gio, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," he whispered, gazing at her. He was more aware than ever of the stone lion inside him. It was incredibly intent, very focused on her. "Max, I think—I think you're my mate."
Her eyelids fluttered in a blink. She stared at him.
"I thought we had established I'm not," she said carefully.
"No," Gio said. He was still staring back at her. He couldn't seem to stop. The resonance between them sang in his soul. It was astonishing; he had never experienced anything like it. Nothing else could compare. It was like having been half a puzzle with a box of missing pieces, and suddenly having them all click into place at once.
"No what?" Max asked. She sat forward. "My jaguar is losing its mind right now. What did youdo?"
"I didn't do anything. I just—"
I just fell in love with you.
And just like that, everything made sense. He could have laughed; he could have leaped up and done a dance. Because now he remembered what Mace had told him about gargoyle mates. He had notes on it somewhere, but he had forgotten because it simply hadn't been significant to him then, except as a mere scientific curiosity.
Gargoyles didn't recognize their mates until they fell in love. Like humans, they had to find and court their mates the old-fashioned way. It was only when true love happened that they would also feel their mate click into place in their soul.
"You're my mate," he breathed. He just had to say it out loud again.
He touched her chin and drew her up to press their lips together.
Max opened her mouth under his, and then they were kissing with all the wild abandon of a week's worth of repressed desire, pushed down until now into scorching glances and hesitant touches and an occasional cautious, stolen kiss. The banked fire that had been building in both of them now leaped into full, heated life.
They slipped off the edge of the tub and half-fell into the bottom of it. A pained gasp from Max made Gio pull away in shock, recalled to himself.
"Sorry," he gasped. In apology, he ran his thumb across her shoulder below one of the scratches.
"Don't worry about it." Max was now sitting in the bottom of the tub, with Gio between her knees and her hair falling in wild, tangled waves over her bare shoulders. She grinned abruptly as the significance of their position hit them. "I don't have any complaints. This is amazing. But what happened, Gio? What changed?"
"I'm a gargoyle." As she gave him a puzzled frown, he realized immediately that this made no sense to her. "I mean, I don't think I really think of myself that way, but technically, I am. And gargoyles don't know their mates right away."
"But shifters do," Max said, puzzled.
"Yes, that must be why our—our animals were getting the wrong signals off each other." It still felt very strange to him to talk about having an animal. But it was. With the awareness of Max as his mate, the lion now felt like part of him in a way it hadn't before. It was only through the lion that he knew her as the other half of his soul. For him, now, losing the lion would be like losing some of Max.
"What changed?" Max asked.
"Nothing," Gio said. "And everything." He tilted her face up with his hand. "I fell in love."
He kissed her again, deep and thorough, the wet heat of her mouth coaxing an involuntary groan from him. Max finally drew away, gasping, and draped an arm over the edge of the tub, fumbling until she managed to pull a towel toward them.
"You need to finish cleaning me up," she said, her voice breathless. "So we can do this properly without me getting blood all over you."
