“Why? There’s nothing wrong with having feelings.”
“Maybe not for other people.” He waved a hand, trying to make light of it. “But I have an image to maintain. I’d much rather everyone thought of me as an omnicompetent evil mastermind than a giant mess of hopeless yearning.”
“If you were so keen to be a father, you could have done something about it. Hired a surrogate, or adopted.”
“True.” His mouth twisted in an ironic smile, even though she couldn’t see his face. “But that’s not all I wanted. I’d seen mybrother meet his mate, have children, get the full happy-ever-after. I couldn’t settle for anything less. See? Not a nice person.”
From Paige’s huff, she didn’t agree. “You really didn’t believe you’d ever meet your own mate?”
“Why would I? It was so vanishingly unlikely that Joe would have had a true vision about our meeting, the thought that it might not have been faking never even crossed my mind. Apparently, fate has an even worse sense of humor than he does.”
“That’s not what I meant. The odds of bumping into your one true match in all the world must be pretty small too, yet I’ve met a lot of mated shifters. Your brother’s whole firefighter crew found their mates, and Zephyr, and Buck as well. That seems more than random chance.”
He shrugged. “There’s a reason they’re called fated mates. A lot of shifters believe that some mystical force will bring destined partners together at the right time.”
“But not you?”
“I have a hard time sitting back and leaving things to fate.” Conleth rubbed his aching forehead. “I don’t like not being in control of things. You may have noticed.”
“I had, yes.” Paige’s tone was dry, but her touch was gentle. “And if you were anything like Archie as a kid, I can understand why.”
He snorted. “Imagine your brother with substantially less common sense, superspeed, and an enthusiastic identical sidekick. Let’s just say I had many pointed life lessons in the importance of self-control. Not that they did any good until my doctors finally found a stimulant without horrible side-effects.”
“Your current medication side-effects seem pretty horrible.”
“You should have seen the other ones. Adjusting human-tested medicines to shifters isn’t easy. I’ll take a few headaches for not being a walking disaster.”
He couldn’t see her, but somehow he had an impression of a thoughtful gaze resting on the back of his head. “And now you always have to be in control. Of everything, not just yourself. That’s why you panicked at our first meeting, when Archie yelled out the truth about us being mates.”
“You really do know me too well.” His mind jumped tracks, following tangential connections. “My turn. Can I ask you something?”
“If it’s whether I want kids, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. It’s not something I’ve ever been able to think about, what with my mom and Archie.”
“Not that. It’s about when we first met, before Archie interrupted. At that point, you had no idea your little brother didn’t like me, or that I might cause problems for your family. Yet you looked like you wanted to bolt for the horizon.”
Paige didn’t answer for a moment. “I guess I was scared, too.”
Conleth turned around at that, surprised. “Really? Why?”
She wrung out the cloth, avoiding his eyes. “The moment I saw you, I felt this…overwhelming pull. I’ve never had that kind of reaction to anyone before.”
“Humans can experience the mate instinct too, I’m told. Nowhere like as strongly as a shifter, but to some extent, at least.”
Paige wrinkled her nose. “Then I’m impressed you were able to form a coherent sentence. I certainly couldn’t. I wanted to rip off all your clothes on the spot.”
He was starting to understand her better now, too. “And when you want something, your first impulse is to retreat from it.”
“I guess I’ve learned that it’s safest not to want things,” she said softly. Letting out a sigh, she dropped the washcloth into the bucket. “Conleth, what are we going to do about Archie?”
He reclaimed the cloth, starting to clean the rest of his body. “If you still want to try to keep him in the dark, I’ll do my best to act as though nothing has changed. But as I recall, the last time I tried to mislead him, it turned out to be a spectacularly bad idea. If you want my honest opinion, I think you should tell him the truth. He may not like me, but I’m sure he wants you to be happy. Maybe he won’t take it as badly as you fear.”
“You really have lost your sense of smell, if you can be that optimistic,” Paige said. “But I suppose there’s no point trying to pretend anymore. He’s clearly figured out something’s changed between us.”
He rubbed the washcloth thoughtfully across his hair. “If you’re basing that on the skunk, I think you’re jumping to conclusions.”
“I know my brother. And I already got him to confess to blackmailing Hetta into helping him with this stunt. He maintains he didn’t tell her to put a skunk under my bed, but she certainly didn’t come up with that idea on her own.”
He shook his head. “Hetta had nothing to do with it. And Archie’s telling the truth.”
