“What kind?”
A sudden image flashed before his eyes, so strong it startled him. “A bear and a wolf, I think.” Wolf? Is that what I’m smelling? He didn’t know there were any Wolves living in Halle. The only non-Puma he was aware of was his cousin Chloe, and she was Fox.
She blinked. “I think we can do that.”
“The bear will need to be pretty specific too.” He wasn’t about to go into details, not until after he’d met the owner of that scent. He was pretty sure that was his mate behind that curtain and he didn’t want to scare her off.
A Wolf? Really? He almost laughed. It seemed he was carrying on the family tradition of non-Bear mates. Ryan and Chloe’s mother was a Fox, and his Uncle Ray had also married a Fox. Bunny’s mother had been human, but despite that, his father had still caught flack in his mostly human community for marrying a black woman. His relatives had known better, and welcomed his mom with open arms. Fighting fate on your mate never worked out the way you expected it to, and you usually wound up in your mate’s arms at the end anyway, so why give yourself the grief?
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “Well, I do mostly piercings, but I could see if Cyn is available.”
“Please.”
She nodded and headed for the curtained-off area at the back. He could hear the murmur of voices, but neither one set off his senses.
“I wonder which one Cyn is,” he muttered. “Green or pink?”
“Pink.” He turned to find the woman with striking dark hair with broad pink streaks smirking at them. “I’m Cyn.” She held out her hand. “So, you want a tattoo, big guy?”
Bunny hid his grimace. Damn it, he wanted to see his mate, and pink Cyn wasn’t her. Cyn’s scent was sharper, harder. More lemony. “Yes, actually I do. The other young lady, what does she do?”
Cyn eyed him with suspicion. “Tabby is an apprentice tattoo artist.”
Bunny coughed. Nah. He could not have just heard that his Wolf mate was named after a kitty cat. No Wolf parent would be that cruel. Maybe it was Gabby or Darby or—
“Whose hair is about to fall out if you don’t get the bleach out now !”
Bunny shivered as that deep southern drawl prowled over his skin. His dick had gone from zero to hero in two seconds flat.
Oh yeah. He’d found his mate. Now he just had to claim her.
Oh shit. Oh, fucking shit. Tabby waited as Glory rinsed her hair out. My mate is out there. My mate . What’s even weirder? Bear. My mate is a Bear. And I have orange roots.
She was damn near hyperventilating. When she’d called dibs on the dude, little did she know she’d actually get him! And now she was going to wind up meeting him for the first time with orange roots . She was going to look like a half-melted Skittle. She grabbed Glory’s arm. “Y’all tell him I’m dead. Please?”
Glory grinned. “What is wrong with you?”
“Remember the whole woof-woof thing?”
“Yeah.”
“That guy out there?”
Glory’s eyes widened. “He’s a woof-woof too?”
“Er, no. More like grrr-grrr.”
Glory blinked.