Page 34 of Titan’s Mate

Brock was grinning now, obviously enjoying freaking her out, the fucker. “Actually, that stands for Dragon Boy. He won’t tell us his name. Or his clan. Or anything.”

“And he just… drops in when he gets in the mood? Through interdimensional doorways.”

“Pretty much.”

“From where?”

Brock made an expansive ‘who the fuck knows?’ gesture.

“Well, shit,” Mari said, looking at the dragon and the ghost playing soccer on the lawn. “This is the weirdest crew I’ve ever heard of.”

“Yeah. Wait until you meet the others.”

Chapter 14

After a rousing game of soccer during which Mari mainly trotted around the backfield cheering for Brock while they got trounced by a ghost and a barely pubescent teenager, Mari headed back up to the cabin.

She’d wanted to give Titan some space to work out how he felt, especially now that she knew more about how his people died, and what he’d done to avenge them.

He’d lost so much, and now the two of them had this—whatever this pull was between them. She could swear he felt it too.

Only, she was dying. He’d already lost so many people; losing someone else he cared about would be too hard. She could understand why he wouldn’t want to go there.

But she did, she realized. She couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss this morning, and the way it made her feel.

The way it made the whole world look like it shone a little brighter. The way his hands set her skin on fire, the way his lips caressed hers.

The way that gorgeous dick she’d been ogling had turned into a giant boner, and the way she’d rubbed up against it with no restraint at all.

If they wanted each other, would it be so bad to make each other a little bit happy for the time she had left?

It didn’t have to be true love, as long as they cared about each other.

But when she found Titan in the studio, sitting on his bench in front of the pedestal that held his work in progress, all that went out of her mind—even though he was working with his shirt off and that normally would have been a total distraction.

The sculpture he was working on commanded all her attention.

It was a wood carving, made from a length of tree trunk about two feet tall and maybe a foot in diameter. He must have started it last night, because there was no way he could have gotten this far in the couple of hours since she’d last seen him.

The whole front of the carving was emerging in exquisite detail—tall bamboo plants close together. In the middle, the stalks were parted and an animal peered shyly out, one paw raised, holding a bamboo shoot.

Xióngmāo. A panda. And not just any panda.

It was her bear. Mari recognized it instantly. She let her coat slide to the floor as she walked up to the table, absolutely mesmerized. Titan stopped working, his eyes on her, saying nothing.

Mari reached out and touched the carving, running her fingers over the bear. “You made her so beautiful. How did you know?”

There was a silence, and then he said, “I saw her last night, after you went to sleep. Behind you, in the spirit world. She looked just like this.”

“Oh,” she breathed, still looking at the bear, touching it gently. No one had seen her bear since the demon had cursed her. She’d thought no one ever would again.

But Titan saw.

Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, and her chest heaved in a sob.

Instantly Titan’s arm was around her, pulling her close. “What’s the matter?”

She shook her head. How did she explain?