I swear to god I can hear my mother’s voice in my head trying to give me the birds and the bees speech “Well Ava, when a man and a woman love each other very much…”
No.
Love has nothing to do with this shit. For some goddamn reason my cat has lost her fucking mind over a goddam human. This has to be some kind of cruel joke. The one and only man destined to be my perfect match in every way… is a fucking cop.
A cop who’s hot as sin with a body I want to climb like a tree and lick every damn millimeter of…
NO. Stop. This is so not happening.
I can’t have a mate. I can’t. I won’t. I refuse to go through what my parents did. Sure, they were decent parents, and they got along fine… but that was it. They tolerated each other. Dylan might have seen it differently, but I saw the forced smiles, the perfunctory hugs and kisses on the cheek. They were mates, they were more than compatible but there was no love there, not really. Not the soul deep desperate love you always think of when you hear the term ‘mate’. Maybe I’m naïve for holding onto the hope of finding that kind of love, maybe it doesn’t even really exist. But is it so wrong of me to at least try?
The second his fingers touched the skin at the back of my neck that first time, I knew. Everything seemed to click into place. It’s like they say in those cheesy movies… colors seemed brighter, my eyesight sharper, and I’m willing to bet if I had food right now it would taste better. As if all that wasn’t enough the second his lips touched mine my cat, that had been clawing at me to get free since the moment I caught his scent by the cabin, went quiet and started purring like a contented little kitty. What’s even worse is as much as my human side wants to fight this, I’ve never felt anything as right as the feeling of his hand around my wrist right now.
The only thing that stopped me from giving in right then and there was the feeling of his almost bite at my neck. The feeling of his blunt teeth against my skin was like a bucket of icy water over me.
Human.
He’s human. Two hours ago, he had no idea shifters were anything more than fairy tales. He has no idea what being with me means, zero concept of mates for Christ’s sake! How the hell am I supposed to tell him “oh yeah by the way, the universe created us for one another, and we have no say in it. So as soon as we have sex, I’ll pretty much never be able to leave you alone cuz my cat is a possessive bitch. Oh! And even better, I can’t promise I’ll be able to hold back from biting you and turning you cuz it’s the only thing my cat can think about. You down for that?”
Yeah. That conversation would go great.
If it wasn’t for me, Kaden would still be blissfully unaware of this world and could be going about his life like normal, but now he can never go back to that blissful ignorance. I need to explain the situation, explain the stakes of this new world he suddenly finds himself in. I owe him that much at least. No matter what I may try to tell myself, there is no denying it, no escaping it. Kaden Wright is my mate.
Closing my eyes in an attempt to calm my racing heart, I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with his scent, the intoxicating blend is quickly becoming my favorite smell. Crisp pine, warm leather, a hint of spice, and a touch of musk… Kaden. Still unsure of how to approach him and address all the things I know need to be addressed before we can move forward, I make a snap decision and just bite the bullet.
He needs to see it all anyway, right?
Taking a step back from him, gently tugging my wrist from his grasp, I finally turn to face him and meet his gaze. Before I can talk myself out of this ridiculous plan, I untie the knot at my waist and let the robe fall from my shoulders, pooling around my ankles on the floor. With my next breath, I close my eyes and let the shift take me.
Having been shifting for as long as I can remember, it’s all but second nature to me now. I have long since accepted the pain that goes along with being unmade and remade into an entirely different creature as being just that, an inevitable part of my existence. Once you can accept it, it doesn’t seem to hurt as much anymore. Once I’m settled into my leopard form, I take a long lazy stretch, letting my muscles ease into the familiar new alignment.
Unsure what to do now, and unwilling to look up and see his reaction yet, I do the only thing that comes to mind. I slink my way past him, shamelessly brushing up against his leg as I go and maybe adding an extra little flick to my tail as well. Settling into a relaxed position on the rug in the middle of the room I watch from the corner of my eye as he turns to watch me.
“So, this is really a thing, huh?” He says with a nervous, awkward chuckle. I let out a little huffing noise, as close as I can get to a laugh as my cat, and settle down more fully onto the rug, resting my head against my front paws. I watch as Kaden takes a tentative step towards me, the fingers on his right-hand twitching at his side like he isn’t sure what to do with them. Keeping my head down, I lay as still as possible as he takes
