Bennett - Milly Taiden Page 0,28

been born a shifter. He had been modified, made by a serum.

Would he have that same reaction to her? Or would he not have a mate sense?

She had spent the long hours curled into Ben’s side, obsessing over the possible answers.

One thing was for sure.

Dakota had no idea.

Time would be the only one to tell.

She didn’t want to wallow in a cloud of self-pity, but it crept in nonetheless.

Figures that as soon as she found a mate, he would be a new kind of shifter who couldn’t tell she was to be his.

Nothing could ever be easy for her.

There always had to be some kind of insane catch. Something to make her feel trapped in her own life.

“Dakota?” Corey asked. “Are you all right?”

Unbeknownst to her, Dakota had started to get misty. A stray tear rolled down her cheek, and she brushed it away angrily. She didn’t want to cry. Again.

“I have no idea,” she answered honestly, her voice choking on the words. “I have to wait and see.”

That was the torturous part. The waiting.

To see if Bennett would pull through.

To see if he would forgive her for injecting him.

To see if he would recognize her as his mate.

“Nice one, jackass,” Stuart mumbled to Vance.

He shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just curious. This shifter stuff is pretty fascinating, and I’m new to it.”

Dakota excused herself and ran to the restroom. Her dinner was suddenly feeling like a giant stone ball in the pit of her stomach. She turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face. She didn’t want to get sick, but she feared she might.

The guilt she would feel if Bennett didn’t make it was already clawing at her insides. Vance might have said he would pull through, but if the serum were to change Ben into a shifter, Dakota would be responsible for that.

For making a very serious change to who he was and how his life would go.

And she barely knew the man, mate or not. There was no way of telling how he would react to the news.

Dakota pushed off the sink and stalked back to Bennett’s bedroom, ignoring the docs who called out her name, begging her to eat a bit more or to take a rest from her vigil. She wouldn’t have any of it.

She would lay by Bennett’s side and take whatever time she had with him. Dakota didn’t know how long she stayed in his arms, soaking him up. And that’s just what she did. She nestled into his side, breathing along with him.

Sometime after nightfall, exhaustion caught up with her. Though she tried to fight sleep, it was a losing battle. Dakota woke with a start in the middle of the night, unsure as to what had woken her so suddenly. It took her a few seconds to register that her and Bennett’s heart rates were synced up as if they were meant to go together.

She sat up in bed with the realization.

He was alive! His heartbeat was fast and fluttering, just like hers.

It was a shifter’s heartbeat. Even his smell, that woodsy scent that made her tigress wild, was sharper, heightened.

Dakota rushed to turn the lights on, even though the sudden glow would no doubt wake Bennett. She turned to face the man she barely knew, the man who was her fated mate.

“Wh—” Her brain came to a sudden and sharp halt.

Bennett was…

There was a big blank space in her brain. She couldn’t seem to finish the thought. Words were just not forming.

He was still her Bennett, but he looked different.

He was no longer a lanky man, looking dangerously scrawny and in need of a few sandwiches.

He was a beefy, muscular, toned golden god. Even his mass of black curls seemed to be impossibly more luxurious.

How was that even possible?

Dakota had expected a change, sure. That her mate would maybe turn into a shifter.

This?

She hasn’t been expecting this.

Dakota went to his side and traced the cut of his jaw. It was square and defined. She willed for him to open his eyes. When he did, she gasped.

Chapter Fifteen

Bennett

Bennett was vaguely aware that something had happened. It was bad. That small word didn’t even begin to describe what he had been feeling. There was pain, and then there was I’ve-been-shot pain.

It was like nothing he had ever experienced before. His blood was boiling inside of his veins as he tried to recall how he had been injured. His consciousness pulled at something. The memories

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