Chapter Six
Bram paced on the back patio, ignoring the sting of the chilly night. He’d donned a t-shirt and jeans but the frigid temperatures would’ve necessitated a coat if it weren’t for the fact he was positively burning up from the inside out.
Thanks to finding his truemate.
She was beautiful. He’d thought she was lovely in her shift, all dark brown and gold feathers, and then she’d changed, healing her injuries in the process, and he’d been stunned. Long, blonde hair, curves that made his wolf howl, and—when she’d finally awakened—green eyes the color of spring grass.
He’d immediately covered her with a blanket to protect her modesty, because no one should be ogling anyone while they were unconscious. And then he’d stood guard and waited, his wolf pacing in his mind as much as he paced right now.
The moment their eyes had met, he’d been toast. She was his and he was hers. He’d never felt more certain of anything in his life.
“Hi, Mom.” Thea’s voice carried onto the patio through the closed door. “No, actually, I’m in Kentucky.”
He listened to her tell the story of her tumble from the sky and waking up with him. He and his wolf adored how the word mate sounded when she spoke it. He couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but he heard her distressed tone and he snarled at her being upset.
“I don’t really care if you approve of me having a wolf for a mate, Mom, it happened. My bird brought me to him, my homing instincts changed when I flew over his pack. What? No, Dad, of course I’m not just trying to get out of coming to the winter grounds. How could you even suggest that?”
There was silence on Thea’s end and then a chair clattered loudly, and she let out a soft sound. “I can’t believe you’re both being so stubborn, you should be happy for me.”
Bram couldn’t stand to hear her in more distress, so he opened the back door and walked inside. He stood at the doorway, unsure if she even needed his comfort.
She turned to him, her face streaked with tears. He didn’t waste a moment in closing the distance to her and wrapping his arms around her. She sobbed softly, the phone still to her ear.
“Young lady, you will forget this foolishness and come to South Carolina. Plans have been made and you will abide by them,” an angry male voice said, her father most likely.
“I’m already home, Dad,” Thea said. “My bird isn’t wrong, I’m not wrong. I’ve found my truemate and I’m going to stay with him. When you come back from the winter grounds, we can get together.” She straightened, leaning away from Bram for a moment. When he tried to let go of her, she clung to him with her free hand, gripping his shirt like he was a lifeline, and she was adrift at sea.
“Thea. You will come to us or there will be consequences,” a woman said, and Bram figured it to be her mom. “You’re going against generations of tradition.”
“Finding my truemate isn’t going against anything, it’s leaning into it, embracing it. If you don’t like it, if you don’t support it, then…I guess I’m not part of the nest anymore. You can call me when you’ve changed your mind.” She pulled the phone from her ear.
“Thea,” her dad’s tone came through loud and clear, and held not even an iota of grace or love, “You will regret this path.”
“No. I don’t believe I will.”
She pressed the button to end the call and stared at the screen.
Bram let her have a few moments of silence, and then he cupped her face. “Sweetheart?” He turned her head toward his and saw the grief that etched her face. “I’m sorry.”
She inhaled sharply and then threw herself into his arms with a sob, her phone clattering to the floor at their feet.
He held her close and let her cry, his wolf furious that her family was being so callous. What parents wouldn’t want their daughter to find her truemate? His parents were elated for him. That’s how it was supposed to be.
“I’m s-sorry,” she said, her voice quivering.
“Why would you be sorry?” he asked gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m sorry I’m crying. I hate crying in front of people.” She rested her head on his chest, her petite frame tight against him.
“Well, I’m not just any sort of people, I’m your mate. You can always cry in front of me, but hopefully you won’t ever have anything but happy tears from this point on.”
She let out a little chuckle and sighed. “Bram?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Would you like me to get you set up in my parents’ spare bedroom?”
Although he really wanted to take her to his home, he would do whatever she was most comfortable with.
“Do you live here?” She lifted her head and looked at him.
“No, I have my own house.”
“Can I go with you?”
“Of course. I’d love that.”
She wiped under her eyes with shaking fingers and gave him a watery smile. “Me too.”
He grabbed her bag and tucked her phone into it, then led her out to his truck. After shutting her in, he sent a quick text to his parents that he was taking Thea home and would not be at work in the morning. The pack generally didn’t work the day after the full moon, but the garage did need to be staffed and he’d originally agreed to work. He wasn’t about to leave Thea alone all day.
His dad texted, No worries. It sounds like her family is not happy about you two being mates. Do you need anything?
Not right now. If I find out anything, I’ll let you know.
Sleep well honey, his mom texted. Love you.
Love you both too.
He opened the driver’s door and put his phone in the cup holder. Turning on the truck, he looked at his mate. She was curled in on herself, her arms around her middle, her head on the passenger window.
Backing out of the drive, he turned left and headed toward his house.
“So when my sister found her two mates, my parents weren’t happy,” he said.
“Oh? Because there were two or because they were lions?”
“A combination of the two.” Lyric had left Allen to go to Ashland for a job interview. Their mother had once been best friends with a wolf named Callie, who had left the pack for the mountain lion pride and never looked back. While the two had remained in touch over the years, the friendship wasn’t as strong as it had once been, and when Lyric mated Callie’s twin sons Elliot and Evan, Jason and Cadence had both been against it. He and Gideon had been pulled into the mess as well, but in the long run, he and his brother had both decided that it wasn’t any of their business who their sister mated as long as they were good males. And they were. Elliot and Evan took good care of Lyric and brought her to the pack for the full moon whenever they could.
“I’m glad your parents changed their minds.”
“Me too. It was tense for a while. And then something similar happened recently with my cousin Jessi.” Jessi had snuck off to a hyena shifter gathering in Pennsylvania without telling anyone and came home with three mates. To say that his uncle Michael had been furious was an understatement. “After a few days, though, he and Shyne changed their minds. They decided it was better to accept Jessi’s mates than to lose her and their future grandkids. I think that’s pretty much what my parents decided with Lyric too.”
Thea hummed. “It’s interesting that two of your family members have multiple mates.” He let out a little growl and she chuckled. “I’m not saying I want more than one mate, it’s just curious. I’ve never heard of multiple matings.”
“Mountain lions and hyenas are the only ones I know of that multiple mate. Wolves usually don’t share, but there are always exceptions.”
He turned into the gravel driveway and parked. Shutting off the engine, he turned in the seat and said, “I’m sorry that your parents aren’t happy, Thea, but I’m not sorry that our paths crossed. I think you’re the reason I was cleaning.”
Her brow arched. “What?”
“The last few days I’ve had the urge to really clean my place. I like to keep it neat in general, but I was working a lot and busy with the pack and just let it go. Then I got the ‘cleaning bug,’ as my grandma likes to call it, and I’ve been going a little overboard with getting the house put in order.”
“And you think it’s because of me?”
“Yeah, I do. I think the universe was telling me to get the house ready because my mate was about to come crashing into my life.”
“That’s pretty neat.”
He got out of the truck and came around to the passenger side, helping her out. She gripped her bag in one hand and held onto the arm he offered her.
“Did you ever have a roommate?” she asked.
He unlocked the front door and held it open for her.
“No. A lot of the guys were living together until they started finding their truemates. Gideon now lives with Kash, but he just recently moved in with him. The pack owns several houses that are available to pack members, and he could’ve chosen to live alone, but he likes to have roommates.”
“Not you?”
He shut and locked the door.
“I just wanted to wait for my mate. I didn’t want to have to move out or ask someone to move out when it happened.”
He asked if she wanted something to drink and she shook her head. She pulled her phone from the bag and stared at it, then put it back and set the bag on the end table.
“They haven’t called or texted. I didn’t think they would, honestly. They were both pretty shocked and angry. But I kind of hoped they would.”
“Do you think they’ll come around?”
“I hope so.” She let out a mirthless laugh. “I didn’t even want to go to South Carolina. I purposely put off my last semester so I wouldn’t be traveling with them. I wanted to just skip it altogether. The nest is…stifling.”
They sat on the couch facing each other. “How so?”
“Old-fashioned and very traditional. The alpha acts more like a king. There are elders, but they have no power, it all belongs to the king. The laws are strictly adhered to, and females are expected to be mates and mothers. That my parents even let me go to college is kind of surprising, because they really buy into all the fealty stuff.”
“You never did?”
“I wanted to find my mate and settle down, but I didn’t want it to be the thing that defined me. I love taking care of plants and being in nature, so getting a horticulture degree and working at a garden center was what I wanted to do with my life. I worked to pay my way through college because while my mom was supportive of me going, my dad wouldn’t help to pay for it. He thought it was a waste of time, but there’s nothing I like more than digging in the dirt and seeing something grow.”
He loved how her eyes lit up when she talked about plants. He didn’t think he felt that way about being a mechanic exactly, he was pretty sure he didn’t light up when he talked about turning a wrench. But he also couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
“Once I was out of high school, they thought I should settle down. They’ve been pushing me to either take a mate or let them choose one for me ever since, but I told them I wanted to wait for my truemate.” She grimaced. “I actually moved out while they were gone.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I didn’t tell them about it, but I had to get away from the nest. It’s so stifling. I felt like there was an ax over my neck all the time, like I might come home one day and there would be an arranged mate waiting for me.”
“Could they have done that? Forced you to mate someone?”
“Not really. The alpha could press it, but I could just leave the nest. It’s happened in the past, but not very often. Golden eagles aren’t solitary, they like to be in big groups of their own kind, and most often an eagle will choose to stay with the nest and go through with an arranged mating rather than lose their family.”
She covered her mouth as she yawned.
“Let me show you where you can clean up. I just put fresh sheets on the bed. It’s all yours.”
He showed her to the master bathroom. “Towels are under the cabinet if you want to take a shower. I’m sorry I don’t have a spare toothbrush, but there’s toothpaste and mouthwash.”
“Thanks, Bram.”
He nodded, leaving her to get cleaned up.
Busying himself in the bedroom, he grabbed his cell charger and fluffed the pillows, then headed to the family room to bunk on the couch.
He turned off the overhead light and settled on his back, using an old afghan his mom had given him for a cover.
“Bram?” Thea called from the bedroom.
“Everything okay, sweetheart?”
“Can I borrow a shirt to sleep in?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He got up and went into the bedroom to grab her a shirt. Finding his softest one, he held it up to the door. “I can leave it for you.”
“Hold on a sec.” She opened the door and took it, then closed it.
He waited until she opened the door, looking delectable in his shirt and nothing else.
“Would you stay?”
“Stay…where?”
“Here. With me. I know we haven’t talked, and I really want to, but I’m so worn out I just want to rest. And I don’t want to do that alone.”
“I’d love to. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to take advantage of you, so I was going to stay in the other room.”
“It’s your room, and I’d like to be next to you when I fall asleep. I don’t actually think my bird would let me rest if you weren’t with me.”
She turned off the light and they climbed onto the bed together.
He stretched out once more. She laid down and immediately curled against him, resting her head over his heart. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and wrapped his arm around her.
“I’m glad I’m here, Bram,” she said, then yawned.
He and his wolf were so damn happy.
“Me too, sweetheart.”
“We can talk tomorrow, right?”
“One-hundred-percent.”
“Good.”
He ran his hand slowly from her shoulder down her back and up again, inhaling her sweet scent and thinking over the odd turn of events. He’d gone for a hunt on the full moon and found his truemate. Her homing instincts had brought her to him.
He was disappointed in her parents’ response to their mating, and he sincerely hoped they would come around to see that he was a good male and would treat their daughter like a queen. In the future, she’d be alpha female of the pack and they’d lead together.
He yawned and closed his eyes.
Thea had finally drifted off to sleep. She’d been so stressed and so tired. He was thankful she found being in his arms peaceful because he sure as hell felt more at peace near her too.
In the morning, they’d face whatever came from her family and nest.
The only thing that really mattered was that they were together.