Page 29 of Mated in Darkness

“Oh.”

“You say potential. Does that mean we could walk away from this?”

Why did it hurt? Why did it feel like whatever the answer was, if it wasn’t right, something I never knew I wanted would break me?

“A potential does mean you can walk away, but I’ve only heard of two or three people in my entire life who’ve ever done it. Sometimes you can find more than one mate in the centuries that a shifter can live. Sometimes it takes a century to find that person.

“And so that means I’m it. We’re it.”

“If it works. The Moon Goddess has given us a choice, but sometimes she seems to know what she’s talking about.”

“You don’t have to sound so resigned, Kaylee,” I said dryly. However, I didn’t feel affronted at all. I wasn’t part of this world. I lived on the periphery. And yet, it seemed I was being thrown right into it.

“It depends on the person. The situation.”

“Would I have to be a wolf?” I asked, confused.

She winced. “I think so. Sometimes you don’t. My dad isn’t. But he has his own magic.”

“Really?”

“My dad is a tracker like me, but his is with magic. My mom is a witch.”

“And yet you’re part of the Pack? And a wolf?” I was a little confused as to the genetics at play here.

“My father is a wolf, and even though genetically he’s not mine, the Moon Goddess made it easy, so all three of my parents’ genetics somehow mixed in with us. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but all of my siblings and I are wolves, even if Josh, my dad, is biologically my father. Some of us took tracking traits, some of us took witch’s traits. It’s all very complicated, but it happens with the triad bond.”

“You’re going to need to sit down with me and go over all of this.” I grinned, my brain going a mile a minute. “I’m a geneticist, after all.”

Her eyes widened. “For some reason I had forgotten that when talking about this.”

“Magic and genetics? I didn’t know they mixed.”

“Sometimes, they seem to cancel one another out. Hence my family.”

“It’s all fascinating. And I’m going to have to know everything.” I paused. “Everything,” I stressed.

“Jason. It’s so complicated. For our mating bond to work, for you to live as long as our mating bond breathes life—my lifetime—you’d have to turn to wolf. Do you understand that? It’s painful, and the only way that our laws allow it is for a mating.”

“Your laws or the laws of the United States?” I asked.

“The laws of the humans that were put upon us once they found out we were alive. Wolf laws have always been slightly different, though no one ever went out to create wolves unless they were creating an army to take over another Pack, and that was a whole other thing.”

“I want to know it all, Kaylee. I need to know it all.”

“Okay. I can do that. But first, we need to find out what happened to Spencer. To the others. And that means going back to the den because it’s tough to be alone in the same room with you.”

I groaned, my dick growing harder, if that was even possible. “You’re making this difficult.”

“You’re standing there with a steel rod in your pants. Let’s talk about being difficult, shall we?” she teased and turned to walk out of the room. I picked up my bag and followed her, and did my best not to look at her ass as she moved.

She was gorgeous, and she could be mine. How the hell had that happened?

“So, we head back to the den, maybe work with the others to try to find answers.”

“We can do that. And then after?”

“Then after.”

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