Page 69 of Nightshade

Never once in my life had I imagined that I would get a mating bite. I’d never thought I would find someone who fit me so well that they stayed, let alone a mate.

But Altair hadn’t chosen that. He probably didn’t even know anything about mating marks, let alone how to leave one. Hell, I didn’t know much. I just knew that biting your mate left a mark. I knew Aleks and Cash had showed up wearing bites like badges of honor one morning, and the whole pack had been abuzz with the news of it. It had been like the clouds parting, when it had been gloomy overhead for years. Suddenly, everyone had seen a future where we might be happy again, as a pack.

Somehow, I doubted that me showing up with a mating mark would elicit quite the same response.

Admittedly, I was only thinking of Viktor’s reaction.

He’d probably decide it was time to find out if a wooden stake really killed a vampire, just for fun.

So when I dressed, I put on my shirt with the highest neck, which . . . mostly covered it up. My usual T-shirt wouldn’t cover it at all, though, it was high enough up.

It was kind of annoying, because part of me wanted to do what Aleks had done, and go around with my neck completely on display. Show it off.

But we were under Ivan’s shadow, and the pack was afraid. I didn’t think showing off my vampire bite mating mark was going to settle them at all.

I slunk downstairs, once again arriving in time for Mama to be cooking breakfast, but oddly enough, I was the only one other than her in the kitchen. She turned to glance at me when I came in, and smiled, but of course, hawk-eyed creature she was, her gaze lingered on my shirt. On the neck of my shirt.

Instinctively, I reached up and slapped a hand over the mark, worried the neckline had slipped.

That, apparently, was all the confirmation she needed.

But instead of reacting, she looked back up to meet my eye, then returned her gaze to the stove.

“Viktor and Aleks took one of the trucks out to Boise, to the airport,” she said, her tone as light as any other morning. “They should be back in the afternoon. Perhaps this was good timing.”

I slumped into my usual chair at the table and sighed, but words didn’t come. I just . . . had nothing to say. No way to explain.

Instead of asking, Mama continued to work on the food, making what had been eggs, bacon, and toast into sandwiches, then wrapping them in paper, and handing me one and pointing to the back door.

I had no idea what the heck was going on. Was she gonna take me out in the woods and shoot me?

Of course not. Mama would never hurt any of us. But still, it was odd.

We walked for a while, and Mama slowly unwrapped her sandwich and started to eat it. As soon as he smelled food, Drew came tottering out of the woods to walk beside us. I pulled off a corner of bread and tossed it down for him and he ate sitting up on his back legs. As soon as he finished, he scurried to catch up with us and beg for more. Even after another taste, he shuffled along a few steps behind us.

When we’d been walking for more than five minutes, Mama finally cleared her throat. “It seemed sensible to not have little wolf ears in hearing distance. You need to speak to me?”

I wasn’t sure what to say, or how to say it, stumbling over the explanation, but then the words started to tumble out, half formed into ideas and messier than usual. “I . . . don’t know how this happened. I just—we just—I don’t think either of us planned anything. It was just⁠—”

Mama’s laughter cut me off, tinkling like the fine crystal they’d used in the alpha’s house back in Russia. “One never plans love, solnyshko.”

Even though the word had been hers, I almost choked on it.

Love.

Love? I’d barely known Altair what, a week? How could it be love?

She bumped our shoulders together and smiled up at me. “It is love, little one. That’s how the bite works. If the bite takes, it’s because you accepted it. Wanted it to stay. You were always my sweet baby, though. I knew you’d find love, whether it also found you or not.”

What a terrifying idea, finding love without . . . well, I didn’t know if Altair did love me. He liked me, certainly. Liked what I had to offer. Liked being safe and fed for the first time in . . . maybe ever.

But I was the one with a bite on my neck, not him.

Shit.

CHAPTER 36

Altair