Page 11 of Titan’s Mate

Ahhhh. She made herself stop thinking, focusing her entire mind on the buttery taste of the pastry, the spicy cinnamon, and the gooey sugar frosting. As she did, she deliberately brought her Nai Nai and Gong-gong to mind—the many times she’d sat at their table, eating hot cinnamon buns. Their faces, smiling down at her. Nai Nai brushing her hair, Gong-gong telling her stories. She let their love surround her.

You can always have joy. But you must keep looking for it. There was joy in every cinnamon bun, joy in the sensory pleasure, joy in the memories they brought.

Joy helped chase away the fear. Fear of dying. Fear of missing all the beautiful things life had to offer. Fear of the demons taking her soul.

If Titan wouldn’t help her, there was no hope. She’d thought when she ran across his profile on that dating site, it meant that Fate was taking a hand.

But maybe Fate needed a little help.

And maybe he did too.

A man who knew to make her cinnamon buns was definitely worth helping.

When Titan got back to the cabin with Brock, Mari was snuggled up on the couch, reading one of his books and munching from a bag of chips.

She looked like she belonged there. That gave him an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.

She glanced up as they came in, her brow creasing when she saw he wasn’t alone.

“This is Brock,” he said, hearing the abruptness in his voice but unable to make it stop. “He’s a healer. I called him to make sure you’re not really dying.”

He ran his hand over the back of his neck—the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle of whiskey. He didn’t know why he was being so harsh. Yes, he did. He wanted her to be lying. Or at least wrong.

He didn’t want her to be dying.

She didn’t get mad, though, like he thought she would. She just looked thoughtfully at Brock, and then him, and then at the bottle of whiskey. He dropped it to his side so it wasn’t quite so visible.

She turned to Brock. “Hi. I’m Mari. Want some chips?” She held the bag out to him, ignoring Titan. Brock took it and grabbed a handful. “Thanks,” he said, crunching. “Titan tells me you’re sick?”

“I have a tumor,” she said. “Like a squishy grape inside my brain, that’s about to pop. And when it does… boom. Dead.”

“Shifters don’t get tumors,” Titan said.

This time she talked to the air between him and Brock. “Sure. I’m making this up. Because everybody wants to be dead. Dead is the new black.”

Titan tried not to look directly at Mari, afraid he’d see things. Demons. Death. Failure.

Hope.

Brock said to Mari, “Do you mind if I check you out? Just to see what we’re dealing with. I’d have to put my hands on you.”

She looked back and forth between them, narrowing her eyes. “That isn’t code for some kind of group sex thing, is it? Because we haven’t even been introduced, and you don’t know my safe word.”

Titan’s head whipped around, staring at her. She was kidding, right? Mari looked blandly back at him. He couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not.

Brock bit his lips. “Noted. My name is Brock, and this is Titan, also known as Squatch. I really am a healer, and I was only planning to touch your head. Is that okay?”

“As long as you don’t get chip grease in my hair.”

Brock grabbed a napkin and wiped his hands, grinning. Great. He thought she was funny. She wasn’t sitting on his couch, asking him for the impossible.

Dying.

Brock sat down next to her on the couch, and she pulled off her silly duck hat. “What do I do?”

“Just relax.”

He reached for her head, and she pulled back. “Be careful. I mean, super-careful. That thing could go off any minute, and I’m not wearing nice enough underwear to be dead.”