Page 106 of Never Submit

Trust me, I remember. Vividly.

Is it wrong to want Mathis this way? To ask for a repeat of that experience out here in the snow, where it’s only the two of us?

I’m alive. Why shouldn’t I embrace it, ask for what I want? Hell, demand it! I feel everything, and the moon is our only witness, that bright glowing orb making the change so much better this time around.

Or maybe Mathis is the one who helped me along, the way I somehow knew he would.

He’s right about the need for play, too. How many years have I wasted on being so serious, on struggling to carve out a life for myself and ensuring I have a future? There really wasn’t a whole lot of time allocated to acting like a fucking maniac and laughing my ass off.

Outside of the weekly girls’ nights that Aspen and Carrigan forced on me, where we got blind drunk, I worked. I went home. I visited my parents and forced them to tell me more about how I went from stillborn to alive.

It’s here now. I’ve got the time. I managed to survive my last birthday and prove the goddess right. Because she did choose me for a reason, and her throwing my parents’ bravery in my face was warranted.

I’ve been a coward.

I’ve been selfish and focused on the wrong things. Or maybe they were the right things because they led me here, to this moment, to this man.

Looking at me, a change comes over Mathis. His eyes go wide, then narrow, inscrutable, glowing an even more vibrant gold.

Something hits me square in the chest. Hot and cold and spreading out like I’ve been struck with one of his arrows, the tip dipped in acid. It starts in the heart and moves through every nerve until I’m on fire, and the snow is actually melting underneath us.

What’s going on?I ask.

Mathis goes still as stone as the vibration spreads through me along my limbs.

It’s a knowing. Something deep down inside of me, and my body feels the effects. A second bond bursts to life alongside the first one, the one tethering me and Noble together. A bond cementing what I feel for Mathis. My wolf and I both know it. Both choose it.

A second mating bond?

My eyes widen in shocked surprise. No. That’s not?—

Mathis shifts back to human form in a shower of light, and I follow suit, mine not as graceful. But when I push onto my two feet again, I stare at his concerned face. It breaks through the absolute shell of joy around me.

The moment shatters when he says, “Oh, fuck.”

Chapter 24

Mathis

Moonlight filters through the trees, casting silver streaks across Ren’s skin, her face lifted as we stand in the quiet of the forest.

My chest rises and falls with shallow breaths.Fuck. I’m still coming down from the high of running with her and the feeling of the mate bond clicking into place with a force so undeniable it knocked the air from my lungs.

The impossible has happened.

Ren’s a few feet away, her arms wrapped around herself. I can’t tell if it’s to shield herself from the cool night air or from me. Maybe both.

She needs time to process. We both do.

“I don’t know much about this stuff, but I imagine something like this isn’t supposed to happen,” she says finally. Decisively.

I rake a hand through my hair, trying to sort through the new sensations spiraling inside me. Ren’s a very real presence inside me—I feel her emotions, small pops of her thoughts blooming in my head. There’s something else there too—a male’s essence woven into the chaos.

Noble.

Holy shit. I sense Noble, too?

This is too bizarre.

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