First he gave a glad growl, loud and long. Lucy gasped. Then she launched herself across the center seat of the truck and kissed him. The steering wheel kept her from landing in his lap. His chest rumbled frustration at the confined surroundings, but they made do. The kiss lasted and deepened until they both had to break off and breathe.
“You really don’t mind that I’m a wolf.” He still could hardly trust it.
“Of course not,” she said. “As for the other thing, I’ll probably have more questions later, but for today I’m all asked out.”
Maybe this was how it worked for a wolf and his mate, but hadn’t Patrick said Nicole was cautious when he told her? Hadn’t Ezra and Trevor’s dad said the same of their mom in the stories Jeremy had heard since he was a pup? Well, Lucy wasn’t either of those women. She was Lucy. She washismate and no one else’s.
“You know that thing we kept bumping into a few weeks ago?” Lucy said. “The thing that’s over for good?”
He nodded. Her eyes grew serious, but her scent remained bright and hopeful, lavender the highest note.
“That thing was a jerk I dated. We broke up in the spring because he was awful, and I finally saw it.”
“Okay,” he said when she paused.
“Well, just so happens he’s a vampire. I guess maybe some women wouldn’t want to date another apex-class guy, but…” She shrugged. “I’m cool with it. Unless the guy’s a jerk, but that has nothing to do with being an apex. As you have more than proven.”
Jeremy tried to follow all her words, but a fuse shorted out in his head at one specific word. He shook his head. A low rumble rose in his chest. One of those—people, right, vampires were people too—had dated Lucy. Had hurt Lucy. No wonder she’d been ready to believe the stereotypes about wolves.
“O…kay,” she said quietly. “Um, I should’ve asked this first, but is there an actual rivalry between y’all? Vampires and wolves?”
“No,” he snapped.
“Right.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. He wanted to grasp again the happiness of a minute ago. A car crawled down the road, missing washed-out dips, and the driver glanced into the truck cab as he passed them. Far out in one of the fields, a tractor rolled along, its engine deep and rumbling like a mechanical version of Jeremy’s wolf voice. Birds chirped, and insects rasped. Beside him Lucy’s breathing was nearly silent, soft and calming. He took her hand, rubbed circles on her palm with his thumb.
“I guess maybe a little,” he said at last.
“Uh-huh.”
She gave him a tolerant smirk, and the protective drive inside him began to subside. He squeezed her hand. “I wish you hadn’t got hurt by anybody. It’s not just that he’s a…” Nope, not going to say it. Not going to taste the word in his mouth.
“Yeah, me too. But I’m better, Jeremy. I’m getting better every day, every month that goes by. And—and really, forget about him. He’s not worth it. This is our time. And you’re going to howl now.” She leaned close again and murmured in his ear. “Just for me, because you’re my boyfriend and an extra hot wolf.”
Yes. He was hers, and she was his. Jeremy threw back his head and released all the happy certainty that filled him to bursting. His howl reverberated—across the fields, up into the sky, out toward the mountains. He was a wolf, and he had found the mate chosen for him, and in the years to come they would build a life alongside his pack. He looked forward to all of it, saw it clearly. When Lucy laughed and her scent brimmed with delight at his wolf voice, at what he was, Jeremy howled a second time just for the joy of it. But there was something he had to do, something he’d put off too long without understanding why.
It was time to tell his friends.
The guys might not believe him. Jeremy wasn’t sure he’d believe one of them if they claimed to have found their life mate.
Then again, they were no longer pups. He, Ezra, and Aaron were twenty-one this year, Malachi twenty-two. At nineteen, Trevor was the baby of their pack-within-the-pack. Aw, man, Trevor wouldn’t let him live this down—not that he’d found Lucy, but that he’d waited six weeks to tell them. It wasn’t like him to guard a secret through multiple weekend cookouts with the pack and hangouts with his buddies. Jeremy had always been the outburst-first-think-later type. But Lucy was different. Lucy was…well. Lucy was his mate.
The seventh Wednesday since he’d met Lucy, Jeremy still had no intention to tell his friends about her. Until that evening after dinner. Instead of gathering the gang, he loped over to George’s place. Across the broad yard that was more of a field, his way was spangled with lightning bugs and accompanied by katydids. He waved to George and Aaron, who were of course doing something in George’s precious garden. The old wolf waved back.
“He smells amped up,” Aaron said to George as if Jeremy’s wolf hearing didn’t pick up every word.
“Go find out why and report back.” George rumbled a laugh in his creaky wolf voice.
Aaron patted his guardian’s shoulder, then loped up to Jeremy with a grin. “Well?”
Jeremy rolled his eyes, which did nothing to hide his self-consciousness, since Aaron and George could smell it too. “Let’s run.”
It was all the invitation a wolf needed. Jeremy broke into a dash, and Aaron kept pace at his side. His friend’s gaminess was the scent of every wolf, calming and blended with Aaron’s signature of pine. Jeremy ran toward the foothills that backed pack land, then kept going until the ground grew steep. By then he and Aaron were twenty acres from the nearest wolf cabin. They slowed their pace and halted under a copse of oak trees just beginning to turn orange and red. Aaron followed Jeremy to an elder oak with a broad trunk, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, their bodies angled slightly away from one another to rest against the trunk.
“Okay,” Aaron said. “You smell stupidly happy, so tell me what’s up.”
“I met my mate, Aaron.” The words came easily now that he’d decided to talk about it.
