Page 53 of An Unexpected Claim

I shook my head, both at her incorrect statement and her obstinance. “It happens more than you think, Peyton. You only know what happened with your parents—of course, I’m guessing since you never want to talk about yourself—and what you’ve seen in your limited experience despite all of your travels. I’m head of the fucking SC. Trust me.”

“Still,” she argued. “We don’t have ‘mates’ like you. Sam and Linette, they chose each other and decided to mate.”

She wasn’t wrong about her friends. They hadn’t been destined to be together, like many other mates, even plenty of wolves. They’d claimed each other through the mating process.

Yet I knew without a single doubt that Peyton was my true mate. I wasn’t sure how. Some true mates had no clue and were under each other’s noses for years, sometimes even mating others before they figured it out. I assumed plenty of shifters never figured it out and some just never met them. But we were different. I hadn’t figured out how or why yet. Apparently, I needed to convince my obstinate mate of the truth before I figured out the rest of it. I wanted to get my mark on Peyton as soon as possible. That thought sparked a memory and—holy shit.Could it be that simple?

I climbed onto the bed and grabbed Peyton around the waist, dragging her over to me. I gathered her hair away from her neck with the other hand, then grabbed the neckline of her shirt and jerked it away.

How the fuck had I missed it all this time?

Peyton had a very clear bite on her neck. My bite.

No wonder the pull between us had been so strong, even before she’d showed up at my door. It was also the most likely explanation for how I’d figured out we were true mates out of the blue.

Technically, we were already in the first stage of the mating process.

An arrogant smirk graced my lips. “Told you we were mates, baby,” I said smugly.

Peyton’s expression suggested she thought I’d lost my mind, then she tried to see what I was looking at. Obviously, her head didn’t bend that way. I swept her into my arms and took her into the bathroom to set her on the counter. I used her hips to turn her to face the mirror, forcing her to cross her legs in front of her. I pulled open one of my drawers and grabbed a hair band, then gathered her hair up into a ponytail. She watched me curiously until I grasped her shirt again and ripped the neckline to expose her whole neck and shoulder.

“Hey!” she snapped, turning to glare at me, rather than in the mirror. I put a hand on each side of her head and redirected her gaze before letting go. She stared at herself with a frown. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

I gently pushed her head to the side, fully exposing her neck.

“What the fuck is that?” she exclaimed as she leaned forward to inspect it from a closer angle. “Is that from when you bit me?”

Curling an arm around her middle, I hauled her back against me, then gently traced the mark.My mark. “You didn’t reject my claim, baby,” I murmured into her ear. “I wonder why that is.”

“I…” Her expression was genuinely puzzled, and I frowned, not happy with her reaction. “I…I honestly forgot about it. With the pregnancy and everything…”

The fact that it was still there meant that her panther hadn’t forgotten, and Peyton might not have consciously remembered it, but if she’d truly intended to reject the claim, she would have. Although something hadn’t quite fully clicked into place or she would have already become a member of my pack. But she wasn’t anywhere in the web in my mind.

The fact that she hadn’t remembered it was there irritated the fuck out of me. I stalked to my dresser, pulled out a pair of loose shorts, and pulled them on. As I left the room I muttered, “You won’t forget it again. I’ll make damn sure no one else ever misses it.”

I headed to the kitchen to make some breakfast for Peyton before I left for KBO. My home office was usually where I preferred to work, but I’d been at KBO because if I stayed home, I’d have talked Peyton out of her panties the first day and we wouldn’t have left the bedroom since. And I didn’t want Peyton stumbling across anything I found out about the serial killer. She was pregnant and had enough stressing her out.

Perhaps that was why she hadn’t been applying rationale to our situation. I’d learned a lot about her in the short time we’d known each other. She was extremely intelligent, seemed to be practical, and despite her stubborn nature, I had the impression that she usually approached things similarly to the way I handled things. However, I had a suspicion that I pushed her buttons just as she pushed mine.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure we were a good match from a practical standpoint, but fate had paired us together and that was enough for me. I was also confident that Peyton would come around. Once she did, we could start to make plans for the future. We’d need to move all of her things here and… While I cooked, my mind worked, making lists and arranging information in a way that made sense to me. When the meal was done, I went to find Peyton and heard the shower running in the hall bathroom. It was hard as fuck to walk away when images of a wet, naked Peyton assaulted my imagination.

I knocked and called through the door. “Breakfast is in the microwave. I need to get ready for work.”

She said something unintelligible, then shouted, “Okay.”

I stared at the door for another moment, bothered by the tone she’d used when she’d mumbled whatever it was. But I shook it off and headed to my room to get ready.

When I reemerged, showered and dressed in jeans and a white short-sleeve T-shirt, Peyton was sitting at the kitchen table with an empty plate, staring at the wall thoughtfully. I walked over and kissed the top of her head before taking her plate to the sink. “What has you thinking so hard?”

“Nothing.”

“Peyton!” I barked. She jumped and spun around to stare at me. “I’m your mate. You do not shut me out.”

“First of all, even if I was—”

Before she’d finished saying something that would’ve almost certainly pissed me off, I scooped her up and carried her to the large island. I set her on the counter and used a method that had been proving to be very useful. I shut her up with my mouth.

I only meant to kiss her hard and fast, just enough that she would forget what she was about to say and tell me what she’d been thinking about. Unfortunately, realizing we were mates and that she still wore my mark had only intensified my hunger for her. She’d put on a pair of skinny jeans that made her long, toned legs look amazing, with a yellow, light, long-sleeved T-shirt. I wedged myself between her thighs and grabbed her ass, dragging her forward until we were practically glued together at our centers.

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