Page 13 of Destined Bear

The responses were immediate.

Congratulations!

Knew it!

Our mates are already working on it. Don’t make any plans for tomorrow evening.

I raised a brow. That was quick. I half wondered which of them saw the car and jumped straight to planning mode. Knowing them, it could be any of them.

My mate was going to be up soon, and I wanted to do something nice for him. I went to my kitchen, made a cup of coffee, and looked through my cupboards for something I could put together for my mate. In the diner, he liked his egg sandwiches for breakfast. I could quickly whip that up for him, keep it wrapped in foil so it’d stay warm for when he woke. It wasn’t fancy, but it would do. I set to work.

Within a few minutes, there was a knock on the door, and then Aydan walked in.

“So, you’ve come up for air.”

I fought back the growl that threatened to escape, but Aydan just laughed. “I know you don’t want anyone in your den right after you’ve found your mate, but you’re going to have to get used to it.”

Jerk.

“I don’t have many visitors here.” Never had. This wasn’t a new thing for me.

“You will now. You have a mate, someone who’ll be living under your roof with you—starting immediately I’m assuming, since he has nowhere else to go.”

“Well, of course he would stay here,” I said, realizing we hadn’t really talked about that.

“I just came by to congratulate you. I’m glad you finally saw what the rest of us have been assuming for quite a while.”

“Was I so obvious?”

Aydan nodded.

“You were going to let him leave and not say a word?”

“I can’t force those things, Patrick. I’d hoped Finn would say something—and he did.” After the way things had started with his mate, this surprised me.

“I’m not sure I would’ve ever wised up. I would’ve just let myself be miserable forever.”

“Eventually, your bear would have insisted you go find him.”

“Maybe,” I said, sighing. I shouldn’t have been surprised I’d almost messed all this up. My father’s words rang in my ears. Failure followed me everywhere, it seemed.

Aydan clapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. I didn’t have the best start to my mating, either, and my mate literally lived in my house. He reeked of skunk. And your mate’s scent was drowned out by burger grease because you never leave that kitchen.”

I chuckled. “That’s fair.” But also, it was my inability to accept what fate had offered whereas he was thwarted via a skunk spraying incident. It wasn’t quite the same.

“Jayce and Corey are working on a party.”

“I can’t wait to celebrate my mate.”

Chapter 9

Finn

I never expected a mating celebration. It wasn’t something we did in my old den, and the way Patrick and I got together… I guess I assumed we’d get some congratulations and done. I most certainly hadn’t expected one to be thrown within twenty-four hours of Patrick and me coming up for air.

Yes, technically, we’d been mated for two days, but we’d spent that time holed up in his house. And during that time, the den kept chugging along, with the addition of event planning to the mix.

We were attending a den celebration. It was a touch awkward, considering everyone knew exactly what we had been doing the past few days. And even more so because apparently everyone and their cousin had realized I’d been pining for him daily. I’d thought I’d been so sneaky. I so very much had not.

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