“Yeah, exactly,” I say, but now that I know the Keepers had ways to fake the mate bond, I wonder if Emily really was Aidan’s mate. Or was that forced too? And the guilt of how close I came to letting him take her hits me with painful clarity. “I think we need to shower again.”
“We definitely need to shower again,” Maya agrees before kissing me softly. “And then I need to sleep for a year.”
“We need to hydrate and eat first, so I’ll have food left outside the door for us. I’ll go use the guest toilet and then join you in the shower?” Maya nods and kisses me again before heading for the bathroom.
Fuck, how did I get so lucky to have this perfect creature as my mate?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Maya
I called Charlotte to reschedule my patients for the week and rang the kennel to keep the dogs until next weekend. I’ve never taken a single day off school or work in my life. Not for sickness, not even for a vacation. But I need to know everything about shifters. I could say it’s the psychologist in me, or the researcher. But really, it’s for entirely selfish reasons.
I don’t want to leave.
I’ve spent time with Dr. Hanson—or Doc, as everyone calls him—listening as he shared his limited knowledge of other species. I’ve gone for runs with Emily and learned that had I stumbled into someone from her old pack instead of this one, things could have gone very differently. Emily hasn’t had much interaction with humans, even less than she previously thought now that she knowsI’mnot human. Sofia, Emily, and I have spent time together getting to know each other, and I already feel a connection with them that had been missing with other women I’ve been friends with over the years.
Like a sisterhood. Part of that is down to shared interests and connecting with our animals, but a lot of it is simply me being able to be free. Finally. I don’t have to hide who I am or whatI want. I don’t have to live with the constant fear of becoming emotional and shifting into my tiger. I don’t have to control every single aspect of my life as a way to cope with ignoring my tiger’s voice.
It’s beyond liberating.
I’ve spent time in my tiger form, testing out what my body can do. Being significantly larger, I’m faster than the wolves, and I can leap wider distances, but they have the edge when it comes to endurance. Having been locked away for so long, my tiger form needs time to build muscle mass. It boggles my mind that exercise in one form has no impact on the other, but injuries appear in both forms.
Now that I’m getting more familiar with the animal inside and syncing the parts that add up to make me who I am, everything is becoming clearer. I don’t want to—and I have no intention of—giving up my career, but I want to be here.
Even if Ryan weren’t here, I would want to be.
But he is here. And it makes everything more appealing. The sex has been incredible. He’s filthy and dominant, yet he gives me everything I need outside of the raw sexuality too. The moments of non-sexual intimacy have been filled with affection and professions of love that have warmth curling in my chest and make me feel wanted and needed, not just desired. He makes me feel like I belong with him.
And Iwantto belong with him.
Despite how things started, I can’t help wanting to forgive and forget. Yes, he lied to me, but it wasn’t one-sided. We were both dishonest with each other. And there was good reason for it.
My tiger pushes me toward him constantly. Every time we are intimate, she wants me to bite him and claim him as mine. It’s a lot to make sense of considering I’m a woman of science, and I’ve never believed in a god or fate or anything like that. But science never explained how I could transform into a gigantic tiger. And it definitely doesn’t explain the connection I feel toward Ryan. Toward my mate.
Ryan has been catching up on some pack-related work since we’ve been here. Sofia took over leadership when he came to meet me, but he didn’t get a chance to fully hand over all the things he was doing. Wolf packs—or at least this one—seem to operate under an idyllic socialist dream where everyone has a role, and no one has to worry about finances because the pack supports them through external investments.
He struggles to be away from me for longer than an hour or two. Sometimes he comes in to kiss me and then leaves again. Like he needs to know I haven’t spontaneously vanished into thin air or something. As co-dependent as it sounds, I love the constant validation and attention. And both Emily and Sofia have confirmed that it eases once the bond is complete.
Not that Jackson or Luca can seem to bear being away from them for long either. Apparently, the pull of the mate bond hits men harder than women. And it also presents differently in each person. Jackson is protective yet sweet, and he’s always working tobuild Emily up. Luca and Sofia are more fiery. They bicker and banter, but they’re also passionate and intense. When they’re in bigger groups, though, they give off a unified front and seem like a great team.
Everyone is busy this morning, giving me time to think and process how much has changed over the past week. And I think I’m ready to accept what my tiger has known since the first inhalation of Ryan’s scent. I’m ready to accept the fated mate bond. We will figure out the logistics later, but I can’t imagine being without him anymore.
My tiger purrs in contentment, understanding without words that we are on the same page. I walk through the woods surrounding the pack lands, cooling down from my run in human form. I lean into my tiger, allowing her superior senses to take over.
When I look through her eyes, everything is sharper, brighter. When I let her interpret scents, she can pick up on the slightest intricacies. I don’t just smell ferns and pines, earth and clay; I can smell the scents of wolves who have passed through this area before me. I can smell emotions and intentions. Where I always felt I was intuitive and knew when someone was lying to me, it’s different now. Sure and certain.
My tiger’s hearing has been the most difficult part to navigate. I can be overwhelmed with the intensity if I open up too much, hearing the flap of birds’ wings, the rustle of leaves disturbed by the slightest breeze, and the beating hearts and pulsing blood of everyone in my vicinity. The heightened auditory sensitivity means that even usually quiet environments can become a cacophony ofsound, making it difficult to focus or engage with others without feeling completely inundated.
Ryan has been teaching me to filter out the unneeded sounds, but it’s still taking a lot of mental energy, leaving me fatigued and on edge if I do it for too long. Everyone assures me that it takes time and practice and that they felt this way at the beginning too. Still, it’s difficult not to feel inadequate when I’m the only one struggling.
And it’s hard not to feel jealous of what I missed out on by not growing up in a community of shifters. No one seems to have knowledge of other tiger shifters. Wolves are the most common species; their way of living in a community has been a protective factor. But even with Ryan reaching out to other packs and the council that governs wolf shifters in the country, no one has ever met a tiger before.
I’m a rarity, in this country at least.
No one knows anything about my birth family.
As I get closer to Ryan’s home, I open myself up to my enhanced hearing, trying to tune out the sounds of the forest and focus on Ryan working from his home office. Except he’s not alone. Sofia’s voice rings out, insistent and too loud.
