Page 99 of Just One Bite
I slip off my shoes and socks to mingle in the clay and flowers.
“My mother brought me. Doxlothia has summer camps for kids. It was … different. Not as wrecked. The school used to grow herbs and stuff before they cut off the woods for students. In the summers, we came and she’d let me play in the dirt and flowers.”
“I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like I was here in a dream.” I chuckle, but Parker doesn’t smile. He’s still staring, with his eyes a hazy bluish green.
I stop when I see the tree branch stretched into the opening from the broken ceiling, and a swing sits on the far side next to a perfectly preserved window.
“Yeah, that’s why I wanted to bring you.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, spanning the gap between me and the swing. There’s no path, but I move my feet into the grooves in the clay. Déjà vu casts over the scene in its familiar milky haze.
I’ve done this before.There’s eerie excitement at the thought.
“Olivia. I—” He stops, ears reddening, and his eyebrows fly up and eyes soften. “Your mark … my mark. I can see it.”
I reach up to touch the skin there, but he’s already caressing it.
“Does it look bad?”
“No. It’s perfect.” He leans down to kiss me there. “Oh, baby. This is—You have my mark. It’s so …”
He sucks at the skin of my neck, and I gasp at his lips on that specific spot sending an ache throughout my entire body. That suction turns into a plethora of kisses, and I laugh at his enthusiasm.
He’s happy, and there’s a calm in knowing I want to make him happy. Have I ever cared about making anyone else happy before? My father once, long ago. My sisters, sure, but that’s different than this.
“Parker, I need to tell you something.”
I can’t keep pretending. I can’t keep hiding from him.
“Wait. Let me tell you mine first,” he says.
“Now?”
“Yeah, you might want to sit.” He motions to the swing.
I do, mostly because I want to. I want to touch the frayed threads holding it together and the wood underneath me.
“I hoped you would remember if I brought you here.”
“Remember?”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him nervous, but I’ll never be able to say that again. Parker is fidgeting, his foot tapping, with worry lining his forehead.
Now my heart is pounding.
“You’re my mate.”
“I know, that’s how you told me it works.”
“Don’t freak out.” He brings his hands out to steady me like I’m a skittish foal about to bolt.
“What is happening?”
“I didn’t think it was possible but …” He’s staring at me, unable to say the words.
“Parker, spit it out.”
“We’re linked mates. We’ve been linked since before we were born. I think I knew it, but I didn’t let myself think it because I thought it wasn’t possible. But it’s so fucking obvious. We have so much in common.”
