His stomach drew tight. No...
It wasn't possible. It just wasn't possible.
Yet he couldn't deny what he saw. There in his palm was the one thing he'd waited a lifetime to see.
His mating mark.
And there was no doubt who his mate had to be. He hadn't been with anyone else in months. How could this be? Sam was a Dark-Hunter. How could he be mated to one? No Were-Hunter ever in their entire history had been mated to a Dark-Hunter.
"You bitches are crazy." The Fates had to be. Why else mate him to Sam?
Artemis would have a fit when she found out.
Incredulous, he wanted to go to Sam, but he knew better. She'd tossed him out and she wasn't the kind of woman a man went to. At least not without a Kevlar cup.
His phone rang.
He reached for it and flipped it open without checking the ID.
"Dev?"
He went hard at the sound of Sam's voice. "Hey."
She hesitated before she spoke again. "I...There's...um..."
He understood the panic he heard in her voice. He felt it too. Closing his palm so that he'd feel closer to her, he licked his lips. "You have a mark on your palm that looks like a bear claw."
"Yes. Does this mean what I think it does?"
He took a long, deep breath before he answered and tensed in trepidation of how she'd react. "Yeah."
She sucked her breath in sharply. "We can't do this, Dev. You know we can't."
He winced at the determination he heard in her voice. "You know I can't force you." Mating was always up to the female. "But if you reject me, you might as well kill me."
"Dev!"
He clenched his teeth. "I'm not a eunuch, Sam. I don't want to live in celibacy for the rest of my life. I'd rather be dead."
"Don't be so fatalistic. It's just sex. You can live without it. Trust me."
She didn't understand what he was trying to say. It wasn't just the sex. It was knowing that she was his mate and that he was forbidden to be with her that would ruin him. Were-Hunters were always insanely protective over their mates. They never liked to be apart.
Knowing she was out there alone...
It would kill him.
Sam let out a tiny breath. "How long do we have to decide this?"
"Three weeks." After that, he'd be impotent. Gah...
"Okay. I need to think about this."
Take your time, by all means. Not like you're the one who's going to be impotent. What ever you do, think about yourself first. He had to bite his tongue to keep from saying that out loud. But if he did, then he'd be as selfish as he was accusing her and that he'd never do.
"You know where I am, Sam."
"Okay. I'll talk to you later."