Page 23 of Fated to Him

And I listen. I never stop listening.

A soft thump and an even softer whimper in the next room make me sit up with a frown. I can’t scent her wolf yet, but that whimper was as close to a wolf as you can get.

Is it happening now?

I’m sliding out of bed when the mattress squeaks.

Fuck.

I pause, waiting to see if Delilah heard it.

Footsteps thump away, and a door creaks open.

Yep, she heard.

I’m out of bed and sprinting after her, not stopping to pull on a pair of pants. There’s no point when both of us will soon be shifting.

It’s the middle of the night. The moon is round and full in the sky, tempting my wolf out to run and play under its silver brightness.

Not yet.

When I told Delilah she wouldn’t make it five steps if she ran from me, I wasn’t lying.

Only I don’t need to catch her because she’s on her hands and knees, one arm wrapped around her middle, as she whimpers in pain.

Seeing her like that makes me swallow a growl. No shifter likes to hear his mate suffering. To see the pain etched sharply on her face, deep lines bracketing her eyes and mouth, is making me want to kill the thing hurting her. But I can’t. Delilah’s shift just started, and this pain is one all shifters experience. She has to push through it. We all do.

“Delilah?” I drop to my knees beside her, press my palm on the heated back of her neck, and absorb the feel of her. “Baby, a wolf is itching to burst out of you. Get out of her way. The pain won’t stop until you do.”

She unwinds her arm from her middle and places her palms on the ground, pushing herself up.

I press down on the nape of her neck, keeping her in place. “You’re not going anywhere. Shift.”

She twists her head my way, and her eyes flash bright gold. For just a second, I catch the barest trace of a scent. It’s cooler than her sweet wildflower and honey. A refreshing mint. And then it’s gone again before I can identify what kind of wolf Delilah has in her.

“Go find another woman to make your mate. Someone who’s not me.” She glares.

I have her on her back, my body braced over hers as I stare into her face, probably before she realized I’d moved. “What I want is you. Who I want is you. There’s no making a mate, Delilah. There’s only claiming one. The universe has fated that you're mine, just as I’m yours. Quit fighting it.”

She glares up at me, breathing hard, her face tight with pain, and her eyes still that brilliant gold. “You bit me. You were going to do it all along, weren’t you?”

I loosely collar her throat and gently shake her, needing her to understand. “I saved your life. Not because I wanted you to be a wolf but because I couldn’t let you die.”

“That isn’t true. You?—”

“Are mine, Delilah Stacey. Some shifters never find their mate. They wait, and they hope, and then wait some more until they get so old they realize life passed them by when they weren’t paying attention. You’re mine. I want no one else but you. I need no one else but you.”

She blinks up at me, stunned by my fierce declaration.

I lower my head, kissing her softly, but pull back when she starts to respond. “I left a napkin on your table before that happened. Did you find it?”

She nods.

I recall her wariness when I’d watch her work. One wrong word, and she’d have been out of Ellis Wood before I could blink. “I was going to talk to you that night, Delilah. I was going to tell you about me, about my pack, and about how you were mine.”

“Instead, you leave me a weird note?” she arches her brow.

“I needed you to know you were mine. Like I said, I give orders. Benji’s the one with all the bright ideas around here.”

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