Page 77 of I Replaced His Husband
In fact, I was now biting my tongue quite painfully. But I stayed silent, afraid to say it out loud. This time, the deputy waited with a stubborn grimace, staring at me expectantly, and I couldn't afford to spend another minute in his obnoxious presence.
"Fuck. Yes!" I burst out. The need to say it out loud won. "We both came simultaneously. But there were no ‘fireworks’ around us for that matter, so I think it can be easily explained; he's in a quasi-heat state because of the pregnancy, so it must have messed up our reaction."
"Pregnancy cravings are not a heat; that's a silly thing to say. And knotting isimpossibleduring pregnancy, Mr. Nolan. For a… normal couple."
"But the blockers… they could mess up my hormones!"
"Well, the blockers surely didn't stop you from mating him."
I froze. "What?"
"What 'what'? Kay is mated to you, and you are mated to him now."
"He? Mated to ME? But I thought it was only a one-way thing! That he somehow mated me, since my mark was very faded! Yes, I did bite him today, but it couldn't possibly work; he was freshly bitten by Maurice only three months ago."
Moor burst into loud laughter. "Are you really so uneducated? It's common knowledge. Marking to mate outside of heat would never hold in normal circumstances. You would have to bite him maybe a hundred times to get a partial mating effect."
I swallowed. "What are you suggesting? And how do you even know he's mated to me, since I have no Allure due to the blocker, Seprudin 1000?"
"I knew Maurice. We weren't very close, but I know his scent well enough. Kay doesn't smell like Maurice anymore."
"He doesn’t?" I suddenly got miffed that, because of my suppressants, I couldn’t catch all those things.
"I can't compare directly, but it looks like his scent is different. I bet it's your original Allure, transferred to him via your mating fangs. The suppressants probably don't affect the small secretors above the fangs. I admit, the strangeness of it is mind-boggling. The blockers must have created this unusual situation, cutting out your Allure completely from you…but at the same time it can be smelled on Kay!" Moor chuckled. "Like a ghost of your scent."
I swallowed loudly.
"So we arereallymated?"
This news was a bit overwhelming. We had barely met, and suddenly, we were both mated?
Moor nodded. "Looks that way. But let's go back to the original topic. Successful mating is impossible outside of heat. Knotting is impossible during pregnancy. And Kay is not in heat, so the climaxing thing can't be easily explained. There is onlyoneanswer."
My body was trembling… the subtle feeling I had for some time now, but was too afraid to explore, could it be true? Too beautiful to be real, just too incredible to happen.
"There's more," I muttered hesitantly. "I extended my fangs while entering fighting mode. It's unheard of, and my fingertips were tingling too, as if the claws were about to emerge."
The silence crept into the room. I guess we were both waiting to see who would say it out loud first.
Moor tapped his pen on his forearm, gazing up at the ceiling. "The Dawsons would have no case against you if that's true," he said, sounding disappointed.
"If?" I interjected, pursing my lips. I so wanted him to say it. That way it would sound less crazy.
"If you are what I suspect you are.True Mates."
And so he did.
Those two short words. Words that could change people's lives forever.
The room fell so quiet that the faint whistling of the air conditioning became noticeable. Neither of us spoke for a long while.
"The True Mate Government Agency would send its army of lawyers," Moor continued in a low, gloomy voice. "The law protects True Mates, and their reactions in fighting mode are deemed too instinctual to prosecute. It would be like prosecuting you for breathing; you can't help it. So there's no case against you. And the bite mark on Jorah's forearm is indeed that of mating fangs. Not only your canines and incisors. I've seen it, and it puzzled me right away."
Well, Detective Moor seemed to be quite perceptive, despite being a shitty person. He added all these circumstantial clues and came to this conclusion, while I struggled with it for two and a half weeks, failing to admit it even to myself.
"You sound disappointed," I muttered.
"And you don't look that surprised."
