She considered that, her heart speeding up alittle. “What about the bond Bagley mentioned?” Part of her knew exactly where this conversation was going, but she needed to be sure. “He was trying to say that you and I are…?”
“Soul mates,” Hale finished, his eyes locking with hers, and Karissa saw a hope there…and possibly concern. “You’re my soul mate. I don’t know how, but Bagley picked up on it. Maybe because of how well we teamed up to fight him.”
Karissa was admittedly more focused on the concept of Hale being her soul mate. But now that she thought about what had happened on the hotel roof, she realized that the two of them had worked together to defeat Bagley like a well-oiled machine. Something told her that wasn’t how Bagley knew she and Hale were soul mates, though.
“Okay, I’m your soul mate,” she said after letting the idea sink in. “I guess that means you’re mine, right?”
Hale nodded, which wasn’t helpful at all. Crap, she had a hundred questions and no idea where to start.
“You said that werewolves get someone who can accept them for who they are,” she said carefully. “The soul mate thing goes both ways, right?”
“Yeah, of course!” Hale looked like she’d just rapped him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. “Being your soul mate means that I’m the one person in the world who really gets you. The personyou’re destined to be with. Your perfect match in every way. I’d do anything to be with you and keep you safe and happy.”
It was her turn to stare. “You love me?”
“Yeah.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “It took me a little while to figure out, but it finally dawned on me that I’ve never stopped loving you, even after all these years.”
Karissa was pretty sure she’d already known that. Just like she’d known that she’d never stopped loving him. For a long time, when she’d thought he’d dumped her, she told herself that she hated him. But now she knew that hadn’t been true at all.
She picked up a fry and nibbled on it. “And the destined to be together part? Does that mean we were always meant to be together—that we were soul mates—even back in high school?”
Hale seemed to consider that for a long time before answering. “To be honest, I’m not sure how it works. My first thought is that we couldn’t have been soul mates back then because I wasn’t a werewolf yet. But Mike believes he had his soul mate and lost her before he became a werewolf, so the official answer is…maybe.”
“How long have you known we’re soul mates?” Karissa asked, trying to wrap her head around the idea that they’d been destined for each other all the way back in high school. If she’d been furious ather family before for tearing them apart, that didn’t come close to describing how she felt now.
“From the moment I saw you in that alley,” he said with another smile. “You know, the night you saved my life? It took me a few more days to be sure, but yeah, that night was basically when I knew.”
“How could you possibly know that fast?” she asked, replaying the events in the alley to see if there was something she’d missed. “We didn’t even talk to each other that night.”
“It was your scent,” he said simply. “My nose hasn’t worked since that day ten years ago when Lorenzo kicked me in the face. But the moment you appeared in that alley, the most mesmerizing scent of lilac blossoms filled the air, and I just knew.”
She was tempted to lean over and sniff her own skin but decided against it. She got the feeling it was a scent only Hale could pick up or every werewolf in the state would have been chasing her around for a sniff.
“If you knew that soon, why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asked.
He gazed down at the two cheeseburgers still on his plate with a frown. “I didn’t tell you because I was worried that you might not feel the same connection.”
Hearing him say that hurt. Did he think she didn’t love him in return?
“Not because you didn’t want to,” he addedquickly, looking at her. “It’s just that…well…you’re already bonded to Athena. I was worried that your connection with her would prevent a soul mate bond forming between the two of us.”
Karissa opened her mouth to tell him that was impossible, but then realized Hale might have a point. How did she know that her bond with Athena wouldn’t affect this one? “How do I know if you’re my soul mate? I mean, you have the advantage of being able to smell my scent, but how am I supposed to know for sure?”
Hale gazed at her for a long time, his expression impossible to read. “Even if I couldn’t pick up your unique scent, I like to think I’d still know you’re my soul mate. When I’m around you, I can’t stop myself from thinking about our future together. And the future I see is always happy. If that doesn’t sound like we’re soul mates, I’m not sure what does. But as far as how you’ll know, I guess you need to ask yourself what you feel for me.”
Karissa had hoped for something more definitive, like a test of some kind, but she supposed that what he was saying made sense. So…what did she feel for Hale? She loved him more than anything. She always had. But what did she feel about beingbondedto him?
After a few moments of thinking about it and a couple bites of her burger, she realized she wasn’t scared by the soul mate thing at all. Ever since shewas sixteen years old, the course of her life had been laid out for her in neat, relatively fixed lines. Go here. Protect this person. Fight that person. Save these people. She’d never had a say in any of it, even without counting the interference of her family. She was surprisingly—or maybenotso surprisingly—comfortable with fate taking the wheel.
Finding out that her love life was being guided by an unseen force seemed sort of par for the course. The fact that her soul mate was Hale—that it had always been him—was comforting. And the idea that she’d been drawn here to Dallas to reconnect with him felt righter than anything had in a long time.
She took a sip of iced tea, then looked at Hale. “Ten years ago, when I thought you dumped me, my parents told me that I should be glad, that being with you would weaken the gifts Athena had given me. That you would have slowed me down and held me back.”
Hale didn’t say anything, but she could see the anguish in his eyes.
“They were wrong,” Karissa said quickly, reaching across the table to take his hand and giving him a smile. “I love you, Hale. And when I think of having a bond with you that’s similar but at the same time different from the one I have with Athena, I can’t help but feel strong, wanted, and cherished. I could never imagine being with anyone else.”
Hale was up and stepping around the table so fast Karissa didn’t have a chance to move. Half a second later, he urged her to her feet, his mouth coming down to cover hers. They kissed so long and deep that Karissa actually started to get a little light-headed—but in the best possible way. When Hale finally broke the kiss, she was almost gasping for breath.
