Page 96 of The Healer

“Hasn’t come up for air, but he did ask for Will’s hand in mating.”

Rhys jerked back, almost spilling his coffee. “What?”

Noah laughed. “Yeah, me too. I damn near swallowed my tongue.”

“Mating? As in marriage?” Lona’s eyes were wide, and her lingering smile promised to dimple her cheek if she let it fully form.

“Yup,” Jase answered while adding a sixth sugar to his coffee.

“Will there be a ceremony?” She cradled her cup to her chest and waited.

“Nope, the union between shifters is an intimate one.” Noah sighed, then cast Rhys an arched brow when he nudged him with his knee.

Fuck, no, not now. Rhys wasn’t ready to lose her.

“Quit bumping me,” Noah hissed.

“Shut up,” Rhys growled.

“Yeah, the pack gets informed afterward.” Jase slurped his coffee unaware that the blood in Rhys’s veins had chilled. “The exchange of blood has to happen followed by consensual sex under a full moon.”

Stiffening, Rhys studied her expressive face, hoping she didn’t put two and two together but expecting her to. She was intelligent, his Lona.

She gasped and tugged on her T-shirt’s collar, exposing the faded bite mark. “Rhys?” Her voice rose at the end of his name, and her eyes widened. Then her breath shuddered out of her. “But…it makes no sense. Wait, consensual sex? I wouldn’t have done it with Dane, and I didn’t give him my blood. You had a drop, nothing more.”

Tension thickened the air, and a breeze swept through the open door to chill the room.

“Thanks for the coffee.” Noah and Jase scattered, abandoning him to his fate.

Rhys waited for their footsteps to fade and the start of a car engine. “When I swiped my blood across your palm, do you remember how you reacted?”

She nodded, but the grip she had on her cup didn’t lessen.

“It confirmed we were meant to be, which I knew the moment I met you.”

“I don’t do matings, or insta-love, or any of that romantic crap.” She winced. “Okay, I enjoy them in romance novels but not in real life, Rhys.”

“Shifters do.” He slumped. “I’m sorry. I lost control. I bit you knowing the consequences, knowing you didn’t have a say. This is on me.”

“Is it…temporary, you know, mates for a season? That sort of thing.” She put her coffee mug down and splashed water on her face at the farm sink. Facing him, she held her fingers to her flushed cheeks.

“No, it’s…forever.”

She groaned, offering her back as she gripped the counter. “When were you going to tell me?”

“When it was confirmed. I didn’t want to worry you when all I had was a drop of your blood.”

She gripped the counter. “How do you know for sure it’s done?”

“Other shifters smell me on you, and you on me.”

“Me?” she squeaked, twisting to look at him.

“You bit me.” He grinned, relieving the moment, then hardened at the memories.

She narrowed her gaze on him. “You don’t seem upset?”

“To be stuck with the woman I love?” He laughed. “Nope, never, no way.”

---