"Actually, I won't leave you then, either. Just so you know."
"Wh-what?"
"You're my mate," he said simply.
"You're in my blood, in my heart, in my soul. To walk away from you would cut me to pieces."
The room spun around her. "I need to sit down."
He let her go, let her lean against her desk.
"Mate?" she whispered.
"Yes." His face grew bleak. "It's a lifetime commitment. Mercy was right about one thing, but I'm right about this - you're not too keen on that, are you?" She didn't answer his question, her mind spinning. "Are you sure that I'm...?"
"Baby, I was sure the first day we met. You fit me."
It brought tears to her eyes, because he fit her, too. Perfectly. "Zach, I..." She blinked, trying to think past the rushing thunder of emotion. "I never thought I'd marry," she admitted. "But it's not the commitment I have a problem with. It's what comes after." A confession made in a voice that threatened to break. "It's this cold terror that the promise, the love, will one day turn into a trap."
"I know."
"She still waits," Annie found herself saying. "For a Valentine or a birthday present or just a loving word. She still waits. "
"Oh, sweetheart." He tried to come closer, but she held up her hand, fighting to think, to understand.
"I could survive you leaving me," she said, "but I couldn't survive you stopping to 'see' me." And the mating bond would leave her with no way out.
It truly was forever.
"That's something you never have to fear," Zach said, the declaration resolute. "It's not possible for mates to ignore each other."
"But - "
"No buts," he said, slashing out a hand. "I will never stop seeing you, never stop loving you. Mates can't shut each other out."
Part of her wanted to grab that promise and never let go. But another part of her, the part that had been trapped first by injury, then a mother's fear, was hesitant. Was she ready to take this chance on the faith of a man's promise? Was she ready to give up the freedom she'd fought a lifetime to attain?
"I'm so afraid, Zach."
"Ah, Annie. Don't you know? My cat is devoted to you. If you asked me to crawl, I'd crawl."
It shattered her, the way he'd just ripped open his heart and laid it at her feet. Trembling, she placed two fingers against his lips. "I would never ask that."
"Neither would I." His lips moved against her touch. "Trust me."
There it was, the crux of it. She adored him, loved him beyond reason, but trust...trust was a harder thing. Then she looked into that proud face, into the wild heart of the leopard within, and knew there could be only one answer.
She refused to let fear cheat her out of the promise of glory.
"I do," she said, cutting the last safety rope that had held her suspended above the fathomless depths of the abyss. "I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone." Something tightened in her chest at that second and then snapped, leaving her breathless. She clung instinctively to Zach, and he held her tight, burying his face in the curve of her neck. When she could breathe again, she tangled her fingers gently in his hair.
"Zach?"
He shuddered. "God, I was so scared you were going to say no." She felt it then - his terror, his love, his devotion. It was as if she had a direct line to his soul. The beauty of it staggered. "Oh my God." There was no way this bond would ever let either of them ignore each other. "Zach, I adore you." She could finally admit that, needed to admit it, needed to tell him that he wasn't alone.
"I know." He squeezed her even as a wave of love flavored with the primal fury of the cat came down the bond between them. "I can feel you inside me."
So could she, she thought in mute wonder, so could she.
A week later, Annie sat down in Zach's lap, blocking his view of the football game. He reached up to kiss her. "Want to play, Teach?"
She always wanted to play with him. But they had things to discuss. "No, this is business."
He turned off the game. "So?"
"So we have to have a wedding."
"We're mated." A growl poured out of his mouth. "Why the hell do we need to have a wedding? Those things drive everyone crazy - last year, I saw a grown man cry during the buildup." Once, she would've wondered how on earth changeling women dared stand up to their mates when the men got all growly. Now she knew - just like her, those women knew that heaven might fall and the earth might crumble, but their mates would never hurt them. "Didn't you say we were going to have a mating ceremony?"
"It's not really a ceremony." He scowled. "More a celebration of our being together."
She couldn't help it. She reached out to stroke her fingers through his hair.
"It's getting stronger," she said.
"It'll keep doing that." His scowl turned into a smile that hit her right in the heart. "Even when we're a hundred and twenty, I'll still want to crawl all over you."
"Zach, you're a menace." And she loved him for it. Was starting to truly see what she'd gotten when she accepted the mating. It was a powerful, almost vicious need, but it was also a bond of the deepest, most unflinching love. Even when he wasn't with her, she felt him loving her deep inside. "We need to have a wedding," she said, coaxing him with a slow kiss, "because my parents need to see me married, and Caro's already picked out a matron of honor dress." Then she dealt what she knew would be the deathblow to any further objections.
"Their happiness is important to me."
He blew out a breath. "Fine.
When?"
"I was thinking spring for both ceremonies."
"That's a while away." He slid his hands under her sweater, touching skin.
"We could do it at Christmas. A present for both of us."
"No," she said, stroking his nape with her fingertips. "It has to be spring. I want everything alive and growing." As she felt she was growing, opening, becoming. "And I already have my present."
Eyes the color of the deepest ocean gleamed with feline curiosity. "Yeah?"
"A long time ago, during the Christmas I lay in hospital," she told him, retrieving a memory that had once been painful, but was now full of wonder, "I wished for someone who would be mine, someone I could play with and share all my secrets." Never could she have imagined the astonishing final outcome of that long-ago wish.
He moved his hands down to close over her thighs. "Are you calling me your gift?"
"Yes." She smiled. "How do you feel about that?"
"Like it's my turn to be unwrapped." He nibbled at her mouth.
"Do it slow."
Her laughter mingled with his and the sound felt like starlight on her skin, like the promise of forever...like a lick of "majick."
Declaration of Courtship Chapter 1
COOPER HAD BEEN good.
Very good.
More good than he'd ever before been in his life.
He'd stayed away from his sexy new systems-maintenance engineer for over six months. Six months. It might as well have been a decade, as far as he was concerned. A dominant predatory changeling male did not do patient when he decided on a woman, but circumstances had forced patience on him, and it was a patience that had worn his wolf's temper to a feral edge.
With her curvy body and that soft ebony hair he wanted to fist in his hands while he used his mouth, his teeth, to mark her creamy skin, she spoke to his every male instinct. The wolf who was his other half was in full agreement.
Both sides of him wanted to claim her until no one had any doubts that she belonged to him.
He'd gritted his teeth and fought the primal urge, however, aware that as the lieutenant in charge of the satellite SnowDancer den located on the northern edge of the San Gabriel Mountains, Grace was under his protection. His status wouldn't have put the brakes on his pursuit had she been even a moderately strong dominant, but Grace was one of the most submissive wolves in SnowDancer. Cooper knew damn well submissives didn't automatically obey dominants, but the impulse was a visceral one.
Added to that, Grace had been deeply vulnerable immediately after shifting into a new den. Cooper had known he couldn't go after her until she'd formed new friendships, created a support system that would give her the strength to reject him if his courtship was unwelcome.
His claws pricked the insides of his skin at the thought, but man and wolf both knew that if she said no, he had to back off. At once. Because where a dominant female might run to incite a man to chase her in a challenge that came from the wild heart of her wolf, if a submissive ran and it wasn't open play, she was trying to escape.
Don't run from me, sweetheart , he thought as he took the final steps to her. I only bite a little. Not quite true, but he was planning to be on his best behavior until she trusted him enough to handle the aggressive sensuality that was an integral aspect of his nature. "Grace."
GRACE felt her heart kick against her ribs at the sound of that deep masculine voice as darkly delicious as it was dangerous to her senses.
Get a grip, Grace. You're being ridiculous.
It was the same thing she'd been telling herself over and over since her first day in the San Gabriel den, when Cooper had welcomed her to the region.
Big and deadly and gorgeous as he was, it wasn't hard to see why he'd knocked the breath out of her at first sight. The man was a living, breathing aphrodisiac.
If they'd been alone, she wasn't sure she'd have survived that meeting without doing something very stupid.
Like attempting to claim skin privileges from a male she was certain no one dared touch without his explicit permission.
Yet even in her stunned state, she'd known the attraction to be a wild impossibility. While dominants mated or bonded with submissives often enough that it wasn't considered unusual, the dominance gap between her and Cooper w a s too wide. They were literally at opposite ends of the hierarchy - her wolf knew Cooper could chew her up and spit her out without noticing.