in Billings, Fenrir. That’s not just around the corner. And investigations can take me across multiple states, sometimes for weeks at a time. Meeting up is going to take some careful planning. It’s going to be difficult.”
He shrugged, still looking unconcerned. “I will come with you. We will be together. Not difficult.”
She’d suspected that he would propose that, without thinking it through. “Fenrir, you’re a hellhound. You need your pack. You can’t leave your friends for months at a time. It’ll be too hard on you.”
“You are my pack too.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “Will miss the others, yes. Will miss you, desperately, when fire season starts and I am the one who must be away. But pack is pack, no matter how far apart, or for how long.”
Her worry faltered in the face of his calm certainty. “You make it sound so simple.”
“Because it is simple. Darcy. You are overthinking this. We are mates. If we are together, that is all that matters.”
“That’s another thing.” She steeled herself. “We need to talk about mating.”
She’d thought that he’d be enthusiastic, or at least show some anticipation. But the expression that flashed across his face looked more like alarm. He concealed it quickly, but a note of tension entered his voice.
“Thought you weren’t ready for that,” he said. “Thought you wouldn’t be ready for that for a long time.”
“I’m not saying that I am ready for it. But I’ve learned how much it means to shifters. You’ve been so careful and considerate of my need to take things slowly—relatively speaking—but this relationship can’t be all one-sided. If this is going to work, we have to consider your needs too.”
“I need you. That’s all.”
“I know, but—Fenrir, don’t you want to mate me?”
“Oh yes,” he said—very softly, but with a look in his eyes that she felt all the way to the center of her heart. “Yes.”
She traced the lines of his face. “Waiting has been harder on you than you’ve let on, hasn’t it? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He turned his head, kissing her fingertips. “Would have had to wait anyway. Am not ready either.”
“Not ready to mate?” she said in surprise. “Why?”
“Because…I would have to let my hellhound out. Not fully, not to shift. But in order to be able to bite you, to form the mate bond, I would have to let it rise. I can’t risk that. Not yet.”
She smoothed back his hair. “Wystan’s worried about how much you’re repressing your inner animal. He doesn’t think it’s healthy for you.”
His mouth tightened. “Wystan was not stuck as a beast for twenty years.”
“Twenty years?” She jerked up, staring at him. “You know that you were a wolf that long?”
Fenrir’s gaze slid away from hers. He shifted underneath her, rolling her onto the bed so that he could sit up.
“Know it was about that long,” he said gruffly. Without her glasses, his face was a vague blur, unreadable. “Animals don’t measure time like humans. Only the present matters, not the past or the future. But I can remember the turn of the seasons. Many winters, many springs.”
“Then my theory might be right after all!” Excited, she scrambled up, fumbling for her glasses on the bedside table. “You can’t be older than thirty at the most. If we can work out how many years you spent as a wolf, and work backwards—”
“Can’t,” he interrupted. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, turning his back to her. “Stop, Darcy. Don’t ask me to remember. You know I can’t.”
“But can’t you at least try?” Darcy pushed her hands through her hair in frustration. “Fenrir, leaving aside the matter of finding Lupa, aren’t you the least bit curious about where you came from? Don’t you want to know who you are?”
“I know who I am. I am yours.”
“You can’t define yourself by another person. Fenrir, don’t you see? You’re still living in the present. You don’t look ahead to the future, and you seem to be actively hiding from your past. That’s not right.”
His shoulders stiffened. “You think I am still an animal?”
“I didn’t say that. But you were hurt, Fenrir. Badly, badly hurt.” She touched the ring of red, raised scars around his shoulder. He didn’t react. “Pretending that it didn’t happen won’t make it go away. And I’m not a magic bandage that can heal all your trauma. Mating me won’t wipe out your past.”
He let out a long, deep sigh. “I know.”
She gently kissed his other