She turns to face me and prowls forward with tentative steps. She nudges me with her head before circling me, her body close to mine, her tail winding around me. My wolf whimpers as I lean into her. She’s much larger than me in this form, and my wolf loves it. He loves how strong she must be.
How strong she will need to be when I break her fucking heart.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Maya
One hour earlier.
“Come on, babe,” Sofia urges as I hover at the entrance to Emily and Jackson’s home. “If a human rule is broken with no humans around to hear, did it really get broken?”
“Maya, I promise, I’m okay with this,” Emily adds. “You being my therapist was part of what helped you find your fated mate. It was destiny, and I don’t believe that you were meant to come here just to pretend not to know me. And not be able to be my friend.”
I’m still reticent to accept the offer of friendship from a former patient. It’s only been maybe a month since Emily stopped coming to me every two weeks. But I also feel as if I could implode if I don’t talk to them both and get more answers.
“Plus,” Sofia adds, “you don’t even know the full shifter story of what really went down with Aidan.”
“Oh my God. I hadn’t even considered that!” I say with a gasp. My eyes snap to Emily.
“Cliff notes version?” she asks, and I nod. “Aidan was my fated mate. Our bond snapped into place when I turned twenty-one. He showed up and tried to take me back with him, and...” She trails off.
“And she was a total badass!” Sofia cuts in, and Emily blushes and winces at the same time. “Emily rejected the mate bond and ripped his throat out. Then her second chance bond with Jackson snapped into place. We’re really not sure how Aidan was ever her fated mate to begin with because he was a sadistic monster. Every other mate bond I’ve seen has been a good pairing.”
My jaw drops as everything I thought I knew about Emily shifts. I have so many questions that I don’t know where to start. Poor sweet Emily, who was so traumatized when I first met her. She was having regular panic attacks and dissociation episodes as she worked to overcome what her ex had put her through. It had taken so much strength to get away from him, it’s hard to believe she is capable of harming anyone.
“Youkilledhim?”
“Shifter justice,” Sofia responds with a firm nod and a squeeze of Emily’s hand. “It’s different for us. You have to remember that we are not human. And this was before we found out Aidan was involved in an omega trafficking ring that Jackson’s sister, Katie, among many others, were kidnapped by and forced into a fucking sex torture system.”
“I don’t know what all of those words mean,” I say, trying to work through what I did understand. What is an omega? Can fated mates still be abusive? And if so, why do they matter so much?
Their lives are so extreme. But then I remember when Ryan snuck up on me while running during the last full moon and I thought he was a random man who was going to attack me. I was willing to maim and potentially worse. Not to mention the timethat fake asshole Dom in Sanctum Obscura tried to push me past my limits. I broke his ribs when I kicked him. And who knows what more would have happened if I hadn’t been so worried about keeping my cover?
So maybe this all does fit into place. Maybe if I wasn’t so hell-bent on ignoring my animal instincts, I would be a lot more homicidal. And not just in the way all women who have to interact with old white men are.
“Shit, did we break her?” Sofia asks, and Emily shakes her head before responding.
“She’s just processing.”
“I feel like all the parts of myself I was trying to tamp down are coming together,” I tell them, massaging my temples to dislodge the headache forming. “It’s making sense, and I don’t know how to feel about that.”
I blow out a slow breath and sink back into my chair with my eyes closed. All these years thinking there were so many things wrong with me but I just hadn’t found my people.
“Speaking of parts you have kept down,” Sofia says, her eyes flashing gold with a mischievous glint when I look to her. “Is it time to let your tiger out?”
The memory of the pain and fear of my first and only shift slams into me with a visceral force I haven't felt in years. Panic claws up my throat instantly, like a suffocating vise that steals my breath and leaves me reeling from the sheer terror of it.
“I… I can’t do that,” I say, my voice small and broken, choked by the flashback to that first and only experience. “The pain was unbearable.”
“It’s not as bad after the first time,” Sofia says softly, like she’s trying to talk me down off a cliff. “It will still hurt, but the first shift is by far the worst. And you were probably fighting it, which would have also made it worse. I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt still, but it’s over quickly, and the pain eases once the shift is complete. You just need to let it come.”
The idea bounces around in my mind as I try to calm myself.
Breathe in for four seconds.
Hold for four seconds.
Out for four seconds.
