Page 21 of Hope in his Darkness
Chapter Fifteen
Brody
Hope handled herselfbetter than I thought she would when faced with our animals. I should feel bad for trying to murder my brother, but he poked the bear, or in this case, the gorilla; and the gorilla does not like to be poked when it comes to his mate. Shit, I have a mate. I have a fucking mate. A beautiful, brave, and slightly insane for jumping into a gorilla fight, mate.
What if she freaks out now? Sure, in the middle of things, she handled herself, but now that the adrenaline is wearing off, she could decide this shit isn’t for her. What if she leaves me? Losing Georgia just about killed me, I’m pretty sure I won’t survive Hope leaving me.
Claim her.
It’s not that simple asshole, she has to make that choice, and I won’t force that on her. My inner animal growled in response, pacing back and forth under my skin. He wasn’t happy with my decision to wait to claim Hope, but he’d have to deal with it. Hope needs to understand everything before she agrees to something that is life-changing. So, I’d just have to think of a way to keep her from leaving until she decides to take my claiming mark.
Baby.
Stop being a dick, we can’t force a baby on her either. Although thinking of her round with my child only brings me happiness, I won’t do that to her either. If it is up to my gorilla, he’d already have her mated and knocked up. I can’t really blame him, finding our mate tends to bring out the caveman in our species. He was never behind me wanting to be with George, he constantly rebelled against the idea. Now that I know what a real mate feels like I can understand why he fought me.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Hope asks as she touches my cheek, and I can’t help but nuzzle into her palm. There’s this need to constantly touch her or be touched by her I can’t explain.
“Oh, nothing really my gorilla wants to knock you up or bite you so you can’t leave us. He’s not happy with me right now for telling you that either, basically just gave me the middle finger.” Hope’s face goes from shock to laughter in the five seconds it takes for me to tell her what’s going on in my head.
“Oh, so he thinks knocking me up or biting me will work. Why would biting me work? I mean knocking me up I could see possibly working, but what does biting have to do with anything.” In for a penny in for a pound, I might as well explain everything to her now.
“So when a shifter claims their mate, there is a bite involved. Typically, while having sex, it’s a claiming mark.” She nods her head in understanding, but I can tell by her scent she’s confused.
“Okay, so what does this claiming mark have to do with being able to keep me though? It’s just a bite mark. Is this like you marking your territory or something? Like dogs peeing on a tree? You are not peeing on me mister, I don’t care how cute you are. Eeew!” She’s adorable as she scrunches up her face in distaste. I want to memorize every single detail.
“You think I’m cute?” I smirk at her and she swats my arm.
“That’s what you latch onto, seriously. You know you’re a hot boy, don’t even try to play like you don’t. Now explain the claiming mark.” Oh, even better she thinks I’m hot, this could come in handy.
“Okay, okay. If you take the claiming mark, if I bite you, you become one of us. You’ll have the ability to transform into a gorilla, you’ll be a part of our family group. We’ll be bound to each other for life.” She blinks her eyes several times like she’s trying to process what I just told her. What if she says no and runs screaming from the house? Please don’t say no, please don’t run.
“Are you freaking kidding me!?” she yells and my oversensitive ears make me hunch into myself at the high pitch. Yep, definitely going to run. Maybe I could talk her into one more round before she runs away.
“Nope, not kidding you. I won’t force this on you, but” I don’t get to finish my sentence, Hope barrels into me, wrapping her limbs around my body like an octopus. Clingy little human, not that I’m complaining one bit. She doesn’t smell angry or afraid, which makes my gorilla practically do somersaults under my skin.
“Dude, I could change into a badass gorilla at will. I’d be like that big guy in that superhero movie that smashes shit all the time. Hope smash!” She’s laughing at her own joke, and she has this adorable smile on her face that’s so carefree I want to snap a picture to savor it.
“Something like that, only we have to pay for anything we smash, and we aren’t allowed to reveal ourselves to humans who aren’t our mate. That’s another thing you couldn’t tell your family, you’d have to keep this a secret from them for the rest of your life. This is a big decision, Hope, and one I don’t want you to make lightly.” She pulls back from me looking me in the eyes like she’s trying to decipher some great mystery.
“Do you not want me to be your mate for life? Is that why you are being so cautious? You don’t really want me; you still want George.” Hope’s face morphs into anger and pain. How can she even think that? Of course, I want her to be my mate for life, but before I can tell her just that she’s off my lap, yanking her clothes on, and out the door.
When I jump up to start pulling on my clothes to go after her, Cole is leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a smirk playing on his lips. My animal still wants to murder him, but he’s more worried about Hope at the moment. I on the other hand punch him right in his smirking mouth and grin at the blood he wipes off his lip.
“Found your mate and can’t even keep her for a whole damn day.” He taunts as I yank my shirt on rushing past him after Hope.
“Keep it up fucker and I’ll let the beast have you. Just wait till you find your mate. I'm going to give you shit for days.” He mumbles something under his breath about too late, but I’m already halfway down the stairs so I miss the rest of it.
I find Hope pacing outside, cursing under her breath. Standing back, I watch her for a few seconds before I start to approach her like I would a wounded animal. One wrong move and she’ll take off on me again, I can’t have that. If she runs again, I’m afraid my gorilla will chase. He’s almost giddy with the idea of chasing his mate down and claiming her. Calm down fucker.
Mine. Claim.
“Hope, baby,” I Whisper as I get close to her and she instantly stops pacing and glares at me. I’m pretty sure if she was a cat right now, she would be hissing at me to stay the fuck away from her. Lucky for her I’m a dumbass and ignore warning signs.
