Chapter 107

“How do you know I’m your... fated mate?” 
“It wasn’t until a few months ago that I finally managed to break the curse, then I found out you were the one. I found you by your so enchanting scent. I could feel exactly where you were, like a GPS. I saw your shining aura. I hear your soul singing to mine, love.” 
“Poetic,” I mutter with an anger that I don’t feel. 
“The first moment you saw me, didn’t you feel drawn to me? Because after I found you living with that fucker here in Summerville…” He swears. “The idea that you might leave me forever frightened the hell out of me. Completely.” 
The problem is, the idea of living without him still haunts me a little if I dare let myself think about it. I suffered so much living those months without him that I can’t put into words. 
“I can’t picture an existence without you, my Little Dove. A world where you and I aren’t together is no longer a world that is correct. It’s hollow. Wrong.”  
I forget how urgently he—and I—need to get out of this pit, letting it all fade into the background as I focus on the moment. My body feels torn-half of me aching for him, the other half wanting to argue some more. 
The breath I take is shaky and doesn’t seem to go anywhere. “What happens now?” I ask, my voice much more breathless than I expected. I can sense Ethan didn’t tell me everything about this crazy new world, much less how he broke the curse, but that’s *not* what I find myself asking about. “I mean, now that you know I’m your fated mate.”
“When fated mates find one another, they must choose whether they want to accept the bond or not. The process of acceptance is to claim. Claiming can be marked with a bite here.” Ethan’s warm lips touch where my neck meets my shoulder. “Or here.” He kisses my shoulder. “If they’d rather the mark be less noticeable.”
Then he nudges my nose with his. 
My curiosity spills out in a breathless whisper, “What about you?”
A devilish smirk twisted his lips. “I’ve always dreamed of my fated mate’s mark being in a place where everyone could see it, so there’d be no doubt who *you* belong to.”
Heat fills my cheeks. “Such an Alpha thing to say.” 
Ethan claims my mouth instantly, groaning into it as I move my tongue past his lips and slide it against his. He steps closer, settling between my parted thighs, his bare and hard cock pressing against me. Instinctively, my hips roll as his arms wrap around me, pulling me into a warm, enveloping embrace.
My heart rate increases. My broken body is greedy for him. My hand touches his chest, where I shot him, marveling at how his skin feels soft but firm. Then I slide my hand to his back and feel his back muscles strain underneath my palm. 
Good lord! What am I doing? 
I draw away from him. Immediately, Ethan releases my lips and stares down at me hungrily.
I force my expression into a calm, stoic mask, even as my body melts a little bit into his, leaning slightly into his warmth.
“What if one of these soulmates doesn’t want the other?” I ask. *Like you, that didn’t want me*, I think to myself, but don’t say it out loud. “What if I reject you?”
Suddenly, Ethan tenses, matching his big hard cock, impossible to forget between us.
“You are free to break my heart.” He says, then his gaze shifts to my mouth before returning to my eyes. “I will pretend I have not sensed your arousal every time I am near. I will pretend you do not feel so at peace when you are in my arms.”
I nearly moan.
“We do not choose our soulmates, but we do have a choice on whether or not we accept them.” Reaching, he latches a strand of my hair behind my ear and lets his touch linger. 
Gathering myself, I admit, “I need time to process things, Ethan.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I pull myself together, and I put on my big girl pants because I made a promise to myself to raise my standards, to stop settling for less than I deserve, and to stop shrinking my feelings just to make others feel better by putting up with everything. Before everything went down with Logan, I was prepared to forgive all of Ethan’s lies and start fresh with him, especially after that thoughtful picnic. I know I made the dumbest mistake coming here, but this lie? It’s so much bigger than anything I’ve done! I’m a trusting person. And Ethan made me question everything about myself. He made me doubt my intuition about us. My heart. So yes, I do need time. Then I open my eyes, looking straight up at him. “If we’re soulmates and meant to be, I will not ignore that. But I need time.” 
Ethan’s eyes light. 
My heart jerks. Did he think I would reject him or something?
“Of course, Little Dove. I swear to the Goddess, I am in a hurry to make you mine. But you can test me against your desires for as long as it takes, and I will for sure pursue you for as long as you allow until there is not a single fucking question in your mind that you want me.” 
Good Lord. What do I answer after that?
He frowns. “My wolf is whining in my head. He’s sad. He feels guilty because he’s been the one standing in the way of anything happening between us since the moment I first saw you. He longs for you, Little Dove. He wants to meet you—”
“No!” I cut him off instead of giving him time to explain properly. “Again, I need time, Ethan.”
“Of course, love...”
Ethan lowers his head. I don’t want to meet that marvelous wolf again. 
I’m freaking afraid. Well, the wolf didn’t want anything to do with me because he was waiting for his other half, and now they find out I’m her, and I’m not even a Werewolf after everything they’ve been through? Oh, no, thank you very much. I’m in no rush to have a giant wolf telling me I’m not enough.
Ethan’s eyes lock on mine once more. “Until very recently, I was beginning to lose hope that my curse could ever be broken,” he tells me. “You are a blessing by the Moon Goddess I have only just begun in the past few months to believe again.” 
His voice breaks my heart.
Ethan chuckles, searching the ceiling with his gaze so he doesn’t have to look me in the face. “I thought I’d find my fated mate, and everything was going to be fine. And now I find out that I have already met her and treated her in the worst way I could. Isn’t that a kick to the face?”  
A single tear slides down his cheek, but Ethan still doesn’t look at me.  
I wipe his tear away before kissing his bare chest.
“I can feel you, my Little Dove.” Ethan cups my face with both of his hands. “Don’t worry about me.”
He kisses my forehead.
“I don’t know if I’ve forgiven you yet. But knowing more about you and, finally, how you feel about me, changes everything, *Alpha*.” I give him a small smile, and he smiles back. 
Holding my face a little closer, he whispers in his deep voice, but he makes his words very clear, speaking slowly, letting each one sink in. “I’m not a fair Werewolf. And I get what I want. Always.” Bringing his lips to mine, he kisses me again. This time, it is a kiss of dominance. A promise of making me his. 
When he draws back, I whine. Wanting more. 
“No. I have to take very, very good care of you, Little Dove. It’s hard to breathe seeing you hurt like this, and it’s past time we get out of here. Let’s go home. Now.” 
He effortlessly picks me up in bridal style and I wince, wiggling in his strong arms. My brows pinch together as high-pitched mewls slip from my lips. “It hurts, Ethan.”
A raw, aching pain flickers in his eyes when I glance up. Unlike the bullets he barely felt, this time, he seems to feel my pain deep, as if it’s his own. “I know, my Little Dove.” His head bends down and he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I have you. I'll take you home,” he says, starts walking, carrying me carefully but quickly out of the room. 
My head rests against his warm bare chest. After we leave the basement door, I ask, “Uh... Ethan? You know you’re naked, right?” 
He chuckles. “Well, isn’t that a sharp observation?” 
“I’m serious! What if someone sees you naked?” 
“The path to the car is clear, and Josh is grabbing me some clothes before we get the hell out of this disgusting building.” 
“How do you know he’s going to bring you some clothes?” I look around, searching for Josh. As Ethan walks down the hallway, I realize why this building feels so familiar. I used to live here. 
“I’ve just mindlinked him,” he replies, saying the strange word like it’s nothing. 
“You WHAT?” I almost break my neck as I sharply stare up at him, his arms tightening around me. 
“Easy,” he says, looking down at me, his eyes soft, but I can’t miss the tension in his shoulders, alert and ready for anything. “We werewolves can communicate through thought. We call that mindlink.” 
“Can you talk to me through thought?” I ask, my mouth agape, pointing to my temple. 
He gives me a mischievous smile. “No, love. I can only talk through mindlink with other Werewolves. And, also, they have to be members of my pack, the Blackmoon.”
I stare up at him, wide-eyed. “That’s no less impressive, Ethan!”
His proud smile widens for a moment, but it vanishes the second his eyes land on the bruise marking my face.
“That fucker hurt you.” Ethan pulls me even closer to him. “I wish I could kill that bastard all over again.” 
“You... killed Logan?” I ask.
“Yes. He’s gone. He won’t hurt you ever again.” His voice is firm, and I don’t dare disagree. I search deep within myself, but I can’t find even a trace of sadness that Logan is no longer alive. “No one will ever hurt you again, Little Dove,” Ethan promises, shifting his gaze from my bruises to my eyes. “No one.” 
Ethan starts climbing the stairs, and before he turns a corner, he stares down into my battered face again like he can barely hold back the bile. “I hate that my wounds are already healed, and yours can take your life,” he says thoughtfully. “If I turn you into a Werewolf—”
“Am I,” I interrupt him. “Am I not good enough for you?”
“Of course you are,” he says right away. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t want to...” I trail off.
He opens a sexy smile that, God, it’s really hard to forget that he’s naked. “You’re perfect the way you’re, and I wouldn’t change a thing about you. It’s just too hard to see you hurt like this.”
I nod before asking, “Not that I want to, but is there a way to turn someone into a werewolf? With what? Like, a bite?” I widen my eyes. “It’s not *that* bite you told me about that marking each other thing, is it?” 
Ethan lets out a laugh. “No. It’s not! The bite that turns a human into a Werewolf is different. Cases like Az’s don’t happen often.” 
“What do you mean?” I stop breathing. 
Glancing down at me with a hint of confusion, he says, “I told you, everyone in Blackmoon is a Werewolf, well, except you, of course. Az is a Werewolf, too.” He tilts his head from side to side. “He wasn’t born one but was bitten and became one.” 
“No,” I let out a nervous laugh. “You’re kidding me now. Stop it!” 
“No, I’m not,” he frowns. 
“If Az were a Werewolf, I would certainly know, Ethan! *My little boy is not a liar*!”
Ethan says a little bit impatiently, as though I’m being stubborn for questioning him, “He *is* a Werewolf, Little Dove!”
I grit my teeth. “No!”
“Yes, he is.”
“What?”