His GPS got him to the city hall just ten minutes after leaving the highway, but it wasn’t like he would have missed it any case. It was a tall, gracious, brick building that stood at the end of the short main street with a well-tended park in front of it. This time of day, there was only one other car in the small lot, and he parked next to it, punching in the number Dag had given him for the mayor. It rang six times, and he hung up before it went to voicemail. He figured the mayor was probably inside anyway, and he unbuckled AJ from his seat and took his hand.
“Okay, we’re going to be meeting with the mayor here, so I’m going to need you to be really good for a bit, all right? We’re just going to say hi. They’ve lost a little snake here, and I’m supposed to go find him.”
AJ looked up at him solemnly, and Luca wondered how much he understood. Luisa said he understood more than might be expected, even if he didn’t have anything to say about it yet. Luca had apparently been the same way, and he nodded down at his nephew.
“This oughta be real easy. Everything’s good.”
The glass doors of Clearwater City Hall opened for them, and with AJ in tow, he walked into an atrium that was full of tables holding various science experiments. Proceeding pastOurNoble SoybeanandZebra Mussels-The Dread of the (River) Deep,he couldn’t see any sign of the mayor, but he picked up some scuffling and the sounds of people talking coming from one of the rooms beyond.
“Sounds like our guy, huh?” he asked AJ, who considered the matter with a furrowed brow.
The room in question had the door ajar and the light on, and the sound of the conversation resolved into one voice.
“Hello?”
Luca opened the door to reveal a small conference room, a long table surrounded by chairs and with no one apparently present.
There she is,his panther said just as a woman popped up from under the table with a triumphant noise.
“Ha, got it!” she exclaimed, and the entire world took a hard right turn.
She was a small, plump, white woman with black hair swept back into a bun. Even at first glance, her face was animated and cute as a cartoon, her umber lipstick delineating a mouth that evoked words likelushandkissableandperfect.She looked like she’d be good, so good to hold, and suddenly that was all Luca wanted to do in the world because–
Because that is our mate,the panther in him said, and a feeling like a bone-deep purr shivered Luca’s body.
His mate.
Hisfated mate.
He had always wondered, like every shifter did, what his fated mate would be like, who she would be, but now when the moment had come, there was no wondering at all. Of course shewas this woman and no other. Of course his mate had soft brown eyes and a small scattering of silver hairs at her right temple.
Marry me,Luca wanted to say.We’re at a city hall, aren’t we? Isn’t this where people get married? Marry me, and I will make you the happiest woman this side of the Mississippi, I swear no matter what it takes, and I will love you, and I will hold you from this day on.
Instead, what came out of his was “What are you holding?”
His mate–his mate,his panther couldn’t resist marveling–took a moment to respond. She stared at him with wide eyes, her lips slightly parted, and for a moment, he knew to the bottom of his heart that if he had asked her to marry him then, she would have said yes.
Instead he had asked her what she was holding in her hands, and she snapped out of her wonder with a nearly audible sound.
“I found this caught in a wrecked vent cover. I think it’s from our unwelcome guest. Are—Are you Luca Reyes?”
“I am. Please let me see that.”
She handed it over, and, as he had feared, it was a freshly-cast snakeskin, translucent, papery, and a good nine feet long, even when it looked like maybe a third of it was missing. Where the tail should have been, the snakeskin was tattered and torn, and Luca briefly envisioned how large the snake would have to be to leave a skin like that one. Twelve or fifteen feet long, as big around as AJ.
“Okay,” he said after a moment, handing it back to her.
He picked up AJ despite the toddler’s whine.
“I’m sorry. This has to be done,” he informed AJ, and then to his mate, in a level tone of voice that was honestly impressive given all the… everything, “Will you step outside with me? Please?”
“Um, sure?”
She blinked when he held his free hand out, gesturing that she should go ahead of him, but she shrugged and led them out. There was a moment, just a moment, where Luca thought so strongly about pressing his hand to the curve of her lower back that he thought he had done it, and the shock of that was like a splash of cold water on a sweltering day. It helped him pull himself together, anyway, and he relaxed when they were back on the steps of City Hall.
“You doing okay there, big guy?” his mate asked, looking up into his eyes. It struck him how close she was standing, how easy it would be to step in, lean down, and kiss her. Even now, he could smell her, him and his panther both. Underneath the faintest hint of jasmine, he could smellher,her skin, her heat, and–
“Do I need to call someone for you?” she asked, sounding worried, and oh God, he had actually been just standing there staring at her with an increasingly fussy toddler in his arms, who he now self-consciously put down.
