Page 7 of Prey

Groaning, I slump down and nod. “I don’t even know how I feel about it either. Oh, and his best friend, his brother in arms, hates me, so yeah. There’s that.”

He leans over and hugs me. “No matter what happens I’m here. You know that. But tell me how you feel about it without allthe extra shit. Ethan doesn’t matter right now. This is about you and Kadi.”

How do I feel? Overwhelmed for sure, but also, a little part of me is excited. Also mates never cheat on each other. Once you have a mate, or mates, you only want each other. Having more than one mate isn’t super common, but it isn’t really rare either. Usually, a person won't have more than two mates though there have been cases where there were more than that. Very few though. Vampires are sometimes an exception because they have Blood Mates. Which is a whole other thing.

The fact that I don’t have to worry about cheating is really a big relief. I haven’t dated for the last two years because I didn’t want to get attached to someone and have to wonder all the time what they were doing when they weren’t with me.

Not that my trauma is their fault. It would be shitty of me to feel that way about someone who hasn’t even done anything to me. But that’s the thing about trauma involving being cheated on, it makes it hard to trust people.

I’ve worked through some of those feelings with a therapist, but it takes being in another relationship to see where you’re at in the healing process and I haven’t allowed myself a chance to test it yet.

“I’m happy, but I'm going to stay cautious,” I tell him. Loki pops into the room meowing loudly. “There you are, I was wondering where you got off to.”

“Why are there shifters watching the shop?”

“The hooded guy from earlier. They are doing a stakeout to see if he comes back,” I tell Loki.

As my familiar, he can speak in my mind. Oddly though, usually Familiars can just give you images or feelings in order to communicate with you. But for some reason, Loki can actually speak directly to me. Familiars are reincarnated supernaturals.The best we can figure is that it has something to do with whatever kind he was, though we don’t know what it is.

“So, they are just going to stay out there all night? Why do you smell like lion?”

“Yes, and maybe because the lion shifter turned out to be my mate,” I say. Emmett laughs and I toss one of the throw pillows at him.

“He sure figured that out quick,” he says.

“He says I smell like lion,” I say with a laugh.

Loki puts his nose in the air and heads toward my bedroom. I guess we made him mad laughing at him. He’ll get over it. Though he’ll probably bite Emmett sometime before he leaves in the morning.

“So, are you just going to make them stay out there all night or are you going to invite them in?” Emmett asks.

Rolling my eyes at him, I say, “Well they can’t watch for the guy if they are up here. Besides, I don’t know him well enough to just invite him into my home on the first night.”

“Listen, you could be getting freaky with your new mate, but you wanna be up here with me instead?” he asks. “Girl, stop it.”

“Yes, you big dummy. You’re my best friend and it’s been a weird ass day. So, there’s no one else I’d rather be here with right now than you. Now let’s find something to watch,” I say moving to the couch and finding the remote. Both of us are anime nuts. I find the one we’ve been working our way through. “Frieren.” We snuggle in next to each other and binge watch a few episodes before finally going to bed.

Chapter four

Mates & the Mark of Death

KADI

Mate.

With one handshake turned hand kiss, I finally found my mate.

Ethan is going to lose his shit.

Joaquin is sitting quietly beside me in the alley across from Shasta’s shop. “What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

“How much Ethan is gonna lose his shit when he finds out your mate is a witch,” he says. “I know I got a little harsh with him today. We both did. I feel bad about it though. Even if he did deserve it. It’s been so long though and he needs to let the hate go. It’s hurting the club too. I do think there is more to this particular outburst than he is saying though.”

“Maybe this will be the catalyst he needs to break away from it. I’m not going to allow him to hurt her in any way so he’s going to have to get his head out of his ass,” I say with a sigh. I was hard on him today too. But Joaquin is right. Something has to give. “What do you mean by something more to this one though?”

“I think he has the hots for her and doesn’t want to admit it,” he says. Slanting his eyes over to me to gauge my reaction.

Well, I didn’t think of that. Now that I know she’s my mate, I feel a little jealous if that’s the case. But this has also never happened before either.

---