Page 12 of Dane's War

“In time you’ll find out,” he says and holds me tighter.

Neither of us speaks again. Instead, he holds me, the two of us just sitting there watching, waiting as the sunrises over, brightening the dark and turning it to light. It’s beautiful the colors that come forward.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I groan, slamming my palm down on my alarm. Why in the world is my alarm going off? I wasn’t ready to wake up just yet. I hadn’t wanted to . . .

Oh, dear Lord . . .

How did I not put it together the night before?

Hearing his voice. I should have known it right away. Dane is and has been the man I’ve dreamed up for so long. How is this even possible?

It doesn’t matter that it is, just that it . . .

What am I thinking? It does matter.

Everything about Dane matters, and now I know more than ever that I’m in trouble. Not only with what happened last night but with the very man who isn’t just a man, but a wolf and my mate.

Chapter Nine

Raine

“Rainy, sweetheart, you need to talk to your brother and dad. They need to know what happened last night,” Mom states softly after kicking both my dad and brother out of the house because they wouldn’t leave me alone. They wanted to know what happened and wouldn’t stop demanding answers. Answers I wouldn’t give them.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom. Can’t they just leave it be?” I tilt my head back slightly in order to meet her gaze. For a woman who has two grown children, one way older than me, she still looks young enough to be my older sister rather than my mother.The perks of being a shifter. Longer life expectancy, I suppose.

She told me about shifters and mates long ago when I asked about it. I knew they’d outlive me unless I ended up mated to a shifter. Ironically, it turns out I do have a mate, but I’m not going to think about that right now. I mean, I’d love nothing more than to talk to my mom about it. Tell her what happened. Tell her about my dream. Tell her how Dane saved me. Tell her that the threat of Brady coming after me was something I didn’t want to think about, but it was very much real.

“You know they can’t. It’s not in them. Think of it as an alpha male thing,” she says, waving a hand in the air nonchalantly. “They see one of their women hurt, they lose their minds. It’s not just a shifter thing. It’s a male thing in general. You’re your dad’s daughter, your brother’s sister. They don’t like the idea you were in danger, and they weren’t there to protect you.”

“I’m fine, though.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t have to have eyes in my head to know you are not fine. You’re nowhere near fine. That’s not even using my senses. I can feel your pain, your turmoil, your conflict. Bandit and Sloane told me and your dad that you also found your mate last night.That it’s Dane, Sloane’s ex, over at the Spiked Raiders MC.”

“They have big mouths,” I mutter and drop my gaze to my coffee. “He’s the one who saved me last night. Did Bandit tell you that? He came out of the woods as a wolf and saved me. Protected me, and I can still see him standing over me as his wolf shielding me from my attackers. Even more, I can still feel him gently lifting me off the road and into his arms, his warmth seeping into me.”

Now, why did I share this with my mom? Oh yeah, because she’s my mom. A woman who has raised me as if I were her own. She’s kind and gentle, and when she needs to be fierce, like when I was in middle school and a girl who was known to bully those she deemed less superior to her had taken scissors to my hair while her friends had held me still, and she’d cut my hair. I thought Mom was going to kill the girl, she didn’t but I was never bullied after that.

Mom had also ensured that I’d taken a kick boxing course. She wanted to make sure I knew how to protect myself. Which last night proved that the lessons didn’t take as they should have. I wasn’t able to do anything. They’d gotten to me, taken me down, and made sure they delivered their message.

“Of course, he protected you and made sure you’resafe. He’s your mate. He’d do anything to make sure you were safe and happy,” Mom retorts. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her lean her elbows on the counter, fingers curled around her own mug. “Rainy, look at me.”

Biting my lip, I do as she tells me. “I dream about him,” I admit blurting the words out.

“You do?” she asks, looking surprised.

I nod and take a breath. “I’d never seen his face before, but most nights since I don’t even know, I dream about him. My dreams changed as I got older, from him playing with me to him holding me, but last night the dream was different. I saw his face. I remembered his voice. Weirder still I . . .” I clear my throat and continue, “In my dream, he told me, and I quote, ‘You’re my mate, Raine, everything will work out. You just can’t give up on what fate’s granted us both. Save the man, save the wolf. Save us both. It’s what you were meant to do. It’s what the fates have written for us.’ I don’t know what that means.”

“He said that in your dream?” Mom asks, eyes wide.

“Yeah.” I nod jerkily. “I asked what he meant, and he said in time, I’d find out. Do you think I’m going crazy?”

“No, Rainy, I don’t think you’re goingcrazy. What I think is you’ve had a connection to Dane’s wolf a lot longer than either of you know and that you surely are his true mate. Fate has a funny way of playing games. They challenge us, throw obstacles in our way, but also place us where we need to be when we need to be there. Does that make sense?”

Not really, but in a way, I get it.

“I get it,” I tell Mom.

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