Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 107670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
After a minute, Ally crouched behind Cassidy. “You can stop now, sweetie.”
Cassidy’s brow creased. “She’s not fully healed yet.”
“I know, but I’ll do the rest,” Ally assured her. “You need to sleep.”
“No, I—” A yawn cut Cassidy’s protest short. “Okay.” She sighed as Cain lifted her carefully. “I told you you’d take off my jacket,” she said to him sleepily. “In my vision, it looked like a jacket. But it was a vest.”
“That’s okay,” Cain told her. “You just sleep.”
As Ally put a hand on Harley, Jesse felt healing energy hum through her once again. This energy was stronger and worked faster. The moment the Seer moved aside, he scooped up the little cat and held her close, doing his best not to suffocate her. He was still shaking from the bone-deep terror of losing her. He needed to feel her. Smell her. Hear her heartbeat loud and clear.
He buried his face in her soft fur. “Shift for me, baby.” The cat growled low in her throat, and he felt Harley’s amusement. Apparently the margay wanted some attention first. Typical. And a relief, because it meant she was okay. That was all he cared about. He inhaled her again and again, letting it chase away the panic eating at him and his wolf.
Shaya appeared with Nick close behind, who was cuddling a sleeping Willow. “She’s okay?”
“Yes, she is,” said Roni, “thanks to Cassidy and Ally.”
Shaya turned to Cain. “I know I said it a billion times already, but thank you for saving my girls.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”
The guy frowned. “You’re crushing Cassidy.”
“Oh.” Shaya stepped back, sniffling. “Sorry.”
As she went to take the little girl, Cain held Cassidy tighter and gruffly said, “I’ve got her.”
Jesse nuzzled the cat’s head. “Shift for me.” The margay growled again, and he smiled.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Skimming his fingers up and down his mate’s naked back, Jesse kissed her shoulder. Not a single scar marred her soft flesh. There was no evidence whatsoever that she’d been ripped into by talons and had almost died earlier. No physical evidence, anyway. His fear, however, was still fresh in his system. “You okay?” he asked. She was too quiet. Too still.
“Stop worrying,” Harley mumbled softly into the pillow. She could feel his anxiety as if it was her own. “I’m just tired.”
Stop worrying? “You almost fell asleep standing up in the shower.”
“Because I’m tired. Let me sleep.”
“I’m not stopping you.” Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. He was intentionally keeping her awake. Every time she seemed to be drifting off, he panicked, remembering that moment when he’d felt a fatal, permanent sleep pulling at her. He stroked his hand over her hair. “I felt how hard you were fighting to stay.”
“Of course I was fighting.” She’d known what it would have done to him to lose another mate. She hadn’t been able to stand the idea of him going through such torture, and that had helped her fight as hard as her cat.
“I really didn’t know, Harley.”
Well aware of what he was talking about, she pinned his gaze. “I know you would never have intentionally held anything back. Don’t be angry at yourself. Being fully open to someone isn’t as easy as it sounds.”
He traced the length of her spine. “If the bond had formed sooner—”
“You realized what was blocking the bond, Jesse. I didn’t. I didn’t even suspect that that was what it was. You did.”
He kissed her, licking over her bottom lip. “Our scents have mixed.” Now everybody would know she was taken. “I like it. I like feeling what you’re feeling.”
“I wonder if a bond formed through imprinting is any different from one that’s formed between true mates.”
Jesse shrugged. “I’ve no idea.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Whatever you want.”
“How does it feel to recognize your true mate? I’m not mourning that I won’t experience it,” she rushed to reassure him. “I’m just curious.”
Able to feel her honesty through their bond, he wasn’t worried by the question. “Torrie was four the first time I saw her. I looked at her . . . and I just knew. There was no big revelation or rush of feelings or anything, but maybe that’s because we were just kids. I looked at her and knew as well as I knew my own name that she was mine. I told her that. She just said, ‘Okay.’ It felt right. Steadying. But it has to be different from what adults feel.”
Harley nodded, thinking just how uncomplicated it could be for a child to sense the bond. Their emotions were often less complex.
“So, that’s how it feels to recognize your true mate. Here’s what it’s like for a broken teenager to look at a person and know that, one day, she’s going to be his.” He maneuvered her so that they were on their sides, facing each other. “If I hadn’t heard the words you said to Mia that brought me back to myself, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe it would have. But one look at you . . . and I wanted. You have to understand it was a long time since I’d really felt a longing for anything, so it was a big fucking deal to me.”