Page 16 of Predator

Well, that’s good to know. I mean, it would’ve been kind of creepy if my old body was burning somewhere nearby, but if I was reborn… brought back to life… whatever the moon goddess did, that just helps me lean toward accepting that this was Fate’s plan all along—and that I’m not simply a replacement for another woman, but an extension of her.

At least, I hope I’ve gotten it right…

Even as Lucas speaks, I get the vibe that that’s how he sees it.

“You were supposed to meet me at the cabin,” he goes on to add. “It was the full moon. We were going to mate.” Lucas reaches out, lifting my opal with his pointer finger. “I gave you this when I first asked you to choose me. A mating gift to show you how serious I was. You put it on right away… and were wearing it when I stumbled upon your body in the rain.”

I was…

Lucas lets the opal slip off of his fingertip, lowering his hand so he can cup my boob instead. His thumb caresses my nipple, but instead of turning that into a precursor to mating, he holds onto me as he finishes his confession.

“And then,” he says softly, “seventy years later, Tristan came back to the pack house and told us that a pretty blonde called Fallon stepped off the train. He didn’t notice the opal… he did know that I gave one to Jolie that night… but when I saw you in the window at Marie’s manor… I saw it. I knew then, even if you didn’t have the same features as Jolie, you were still mine. The Luna finally brought you back to me, and I’m going to do everything I can to prove that I’m worthy of her gift—and you.”

I swallow roughly under the weight of his emotions. “I never take it off.”

He presses his forehead against mine. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

No. Jolie did.

I remember that. Her joy at being given a gift from her lover, how she vowed she’d wear it forever, and how she still had the chain on her neck, the opal slick with blood when Lucas found her broken body in the rain, howling his grief to the goddess above as he bartered for the life of his intended mate.

I got my opal from my Mom. A gift for my birthday one year, unexpected since most of our funds were going to the treatment that thankfully kept her alive until I was twenty, and my prized possession.

She told me that she got it for a steal, that someone saw my photo on her lock screen and insisted that I have it. Looking back, that’s just another weird thing in a long line of really fucking weird things to happen to me that I just look past, but there you have it. Mom gave me the opal… but Lucas gave it to me first.

I just… when he looks down at me like that, full of hope and love and a hint of fear that he wants me more than I could him… I can’t help but wonder if it’s me he sees—or his past.

This is the worst time to bring it up. I know that. The last time I confronted him about Jolie, when Jade—because it had to be Jade—slipped the photos of her under my door, it was the full moon and Lucas was too close to the edge of becoming the beast to really explain.

Now the curse has, I know even more about what happened between him and his first mate, his bite is on my neck… and I still can’t get past my feelings of rejection.

I know he never meant to hurt me. He’s a shifter, we both treated me like I was human—since Lucas didn’t even know I could shift until I did—and that meant there were bound to be a couple of miscommunications.

I don’t want this to be one of them.

I hesitate a moment, then lower my hands, gripping his naked waist. “Even if I am her, I’m still me. You… you know that, right?”

“Jolie died seventy years ago. The Lucas I was then died with her. When you opened yourself up to me… when you told me you were mine… you brought me back to life, too. You’re Fallon. I’m Lucas. And, together, we are forever, sucre. I know that.”

I go up on my tiptoes, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Over the years, I’ve had plenty of guys and girls coming up with the right thing to get me to join them in bed. It didn’t take much, I’ll admit, but when Lucas murmurs those words to me, then shifts his head so that I’m kissing him on the mouth instead of just the corner… well, we’re both naked, we’re mates, and we’re alone in the cabin.

Why not take advantage of that?

And that’s exactly what we do.

CHAPTER 6

FOLLOW

As much as I want to stay with Lucas in the cabin forever, that’s impossible.

I already stole so much of his time. He’s the Alpha. He has his responsibilities, and though I might be his mate, both the pack and Winter Creek are counting on him.

When I point that out to him mid-afternoon, he reluctantly agrees. However, instead of reaching for his clothes—and my spare change he brought me in case I came back as a human—he digs inside of a wooden chest on the far corner of the room.

I don’t know where that came from. If it was already there and I never noticed it, or the wood blended in so well with the aesthetic of the hunting cabin that the more shocking items in here—the deer! the wolf! the ax!—that it just slipped my eye. Either way, I’m delighted when he pulls out snacks.

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