Magical Midlife Love (Leveling Up #4) - K.F. Breene Page 0,96

whole bar?”

A grimace creased her face. “Yes? I honestly hardly remember. I just remember this weird need to clutch on to Austin’s back like a mountain climber afraid of falling off. Which is embarrassing to admit, but…”

Oh yeah, she was definitely in the mating slide. That was behavior similar to a powerful female shifter entering the mating bond. Earnessa had once nearly killed a female who’d rubbed Kingsley’s shoulder. He’d never been so turned on in his life, watching his girlfriend at the time defend her claim on him. Jess had only just started the slide. For her to act like this already…

“Man, I wish I lived around here,” he said, then sipped his wine. “You are going to be fireworks when things start rolling. I’d ask your gargoyle buddies about being territorial, if I were you. If gargoyles are more territorial over their mates than shifters are, and some lady drapes herself over Austin, you will burn this town to the ground.”

Twenty-Seven

I sat at the island, stuffed and happy, watching Austin bent over a handmade crème brûlée with a cooking blowtorch, finishing up the crust on top. I was content in a way I’d never been, utterly peaceful. Full, fulfilled, relaxed…

Except one idea kept circling through my mind.

Mate.

Cold shivers worked through me as I watched Austin’s bicep pop when he leaned down to finish the last crème brûlée.

Female gargoyles mated. I’d heard that in the beginning of this magical journey. They banged everyone in sight and then settled on one mate. Permanently. I wasn’t a total fool—I knew what Kingsley had been telling me.

Austin glanced over at me, lifting the blowtorch a little. I muted the link between us so he couldn’t feel my mild freak-out.

It suddenly felt like my life was hurtling forward at a million miles an hour. I’d done the blood oath with Ivy House, signing on for life, which played hell on my nerves when I really let myself think about it. I’d launched into this new life less than a year ago, and here I was making life decisions again. Only this one was permanent.

And now…

“With shifters, when you mate…that’s like marriage, right?” I asked.

Austin looked back at Kingsley, as if tapping him to answer, before bending over the last dessert again.

“No,” Kingsley answered, tracing the stem of his wine glass with his fingers. “Marriage is a legal contract establishing joint assets. Mating is a physical bond between two people. A chemical bond, I guess, that forges within the hearts of shifters.” He touched the center of his chest.

“And you establish it with a ritual?” I asked. “A ritual around food?”

“No. There is a ritual, but it’s mostly a celebration. When the bond is locking into place, it is at its most intense. The shifters involved become unfit for society, to put it mildly. They become much too possessive. They’ll violently defend their mate over the smallest of grievances. So we have a celebration when the shifters are entering this final phase, and then we send them into the woods on their own. They get to celebrate their bond, reveling in each other, and everyone else gets some peace.”

“So then, how do you…establish a bond? Magic? A spell?”

“I’ve never had to explain this to an outsider,” Kingsley told Austin. “It’s surprisingly difficult.” He poured himself more wine and took a deep breath. “First, you don’t choose a mate. Not the kind of mate we’re talking about. Shifters can get married without ever experiencing the mating bond. Or you can start dating someone, and bam, you slip into the mating bond and forever knocks on your door before you really even know the person. Usually, though, it’s somewhere in the middle. You meet someone, you get to know them, and you gradually slip into this long slide of mating. It’s basically falling in love.”

“It is falling in love,” Austin said, delivering the white porcelain dish in front of me, the sugary top browned to perfection. He laid down a cloth napkin and placed a spoon on top. “Sometimes you fall in love gradually, and sometimes all at once. The mating bond happens when two souls unite, and there can be no other.”

“But you choose who you fall in love with,” I said, cracking into the surface of the crème brûlée. I loved that sound.

“Do you?” Kingsley asked, picking up his newly delivered spoon.

“Well, you choose to date them, then like them, and then it grows from there.”

“Which is usually how mating works. For shifters, at