Thea’s home was a quaint cottage, covered with ivy and flowers, with a stone sidewalk leading to a cheery yellow door.
“I’ve never seen a door that color,” he said, keeping his voice low as he unbuckled and opened the car door. It was nearly midnight and he didn’t want to wake Thea’s sister.
“It’s supposed to bring joy to the house.”
He smiled at her. “Does it work?”
“Yeah. It’s also my favorite color, so every time I see it, it makes me happy.”
“Door colors matter, I guess.”
“I think it’s more of a statement than anything. Like a purple door might mean someone of noble birth lives there. Red might mean the person is passionate. I’m nothing if not cheerful. Once I’ve had my coffee, anyway.”
“Did your family ever text back?” he asked, meeting her in front of the car. He held the bundle of flowers loosely as she unlocked the front door and opened it.
She glanced at her phone. “Just my mom. She said she’d talk to me in the morning.”
She shut and locked the door and led him to the family room, where she set the bag down and took the flowers. “I need to get these in water and chilling in the fridge, then we can go to my room.”
He nodded and stayed in the room while she disappeared down a hall. There was an overstuffed chair and matching couch, with a fluffy rug underneath a glass coffee table. A flat-screen TV hung over an electric fireplace with a wide mantel laden with candles and ropes of crystals and pearls. The large picture window was framed with gauzy curtains tied at the sides with twisted ropes. He walked to it and looked out at a home a few yards away. Thea had said she lived near her parents, and he assumed it was their house.
“Are you hungry or thirsty?” Thea asked quietly as she joined him. When she leaned into his side, he put his arm around her shoulder.
“No.”
“Let’s go to my room. I’ll give you the tour in the morning.”
“Sure,” he said.
They walked down the hall, past a kitchen, small library, and an empty bedroom, stopping before an ornately carved wooden door. A scene was carved into the light wood of a forest with a mountain in the background and a creek. It was so finely detailed that he felt like he could hear the water babbling along the rocks.
“This is awesome,” he said.
“Thanks. My uncle made it for me when Anne and I built the house.”
She opened the door, and instead of turning on an overhead light, she whispered a few words and flicked her fingers. Candles on every flat surface caught fire.
He sucked in a surprised breath. He’d never seen anyone light candles like that before. Thea was definitely a powerful female.
She closed and locked the door behind them, then walked to the bed and lifted a piece of paper someone had placed on the pillow.
“Anne left.” She said, reading the note. “She got the text and didn’t want to bother me while I was driving, and she promised to wait to come back until I text her that it’s okay.”
“Did she go to your parents?”
“Probably.” She crumpled the paper and tossed it into a wicker trash basket. “That’s sweet of her. It also means we don’t have to keep whispering. Her bedroom is on the second floor. The house is small, but it’s got enough room for us to not be on top of each other all the time.”
“It’s a cute place.”
“I designed it. I wanted something really quaint, but with room to grow. There’s a screened-in porch off the kitchen. It’s my favorite place to have coffee in the morning.”
“I just realized that I spent our whole drive here talking about myself. You must think I’m an egomaniac.” He planted his hands on his hips and purposely turned away from the enticing bed. He had no idea what the night would bring, and he didn’t want to push Thea into anything physical until she understood what being a jaguar’s mate meant.
She chuckled and bent to unlace her hiking boots. “Not at all. I asked you to tell me everything about your people, and while I’m sure there’s still much to learn, I needed to hear what I did. We can flip the script now. Ask me anything.”
He watched her movements in silence. She undid the jacket around her waist and tossed it into a hamper. For the first time, he saw the mating necklace on her, and his cat liked it a hell of a lot.
“I guess I don’t know what it means for you to be a witch. You’ve clearly got powerful magic, but where does that power come from?”
She pulled her hair from the ponytail and put the band on her wrist, combing the long strands out with her fingers. “It’s hereditary. Your average human could do some of what I do with the right ingredients under the right circumstances – cast spells, call spirits, divine the future, that kind of thing – but what I can do as a natural witch is align myself to one of the Corners and harness that power. My family and I are the Corners for our coven. My father is North, my mother is South, my sister is West, and I’m East, which means I have access to the power of the air. To an extent, I can control natural phenomena like I did with Sybil, bring in some thunder, lightning, and wind. I can’t fully change a weather pattern that occurs naturally. Like if a tornado is headed our way, I can’t alter its path.”
“Does your whole coven live here?”
“Yes. Our coven has twenty members. We have monthly meetings, plus we get together for spell casting like we’re doing in four days, to celebrate the coven’s one-hundredth anniversary. My parents own a store that sells coven supplies called Witchy Things. Anne and I work there.”
“Supplies like potion ingredients and stuff?”
She smiled. “Yep. People can also hire us to perform spells on their behalf, like blessings or protections.”
“Listen, Thea.” He sat on the bed and clenched his hands into fists. She’d said in the car that she understood what being his mate meant, but he knew he still had things to share with her, including the proverbial ax that was dangling over his neck if he didn’t mate her properly. But he was entirely at a loss for words. How did he start a conversation like this? How did he convince her that while she was saving him from a terrible future, he didn’t want her solely based on that? He wanted her because she was gorgeous and kind and fierce, and so very much his.
She walked to him and stood between his legs. Staring down at him, her hazel eyes flashed with heat and curiosity. Cupping his face with her warm hands, she lowered her head and brushed her lips over his.
His heart skipped a beat.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” she whispered, her breath fanning over his face. He drank in her sweet scent, his cat practically drooling over how good she smelled.
“I want to mate you. The moment you were in my arms, I wanted to strip you in the woods, lay you down, and make you come a hundred times.”
A smile quirked the corner of her mouth. “Just a hundred?”
A little tension eased from him as he chuckled and brought his hands up to rest on her waist. “To start.”
“I want you to know something.”
“What?”
Her thumbs rubbed the sides of his face and he felt a fine tremble in her hands. “I can’t stand talking about us being together like it’s some kind of job to be done or an activity to tick off a list. I didn’t bring you home because I think you’re gorgeous – I brought you here because something deep inside me wouldn’t let me walk away. But now I need to know something.”
“Anything.”
“What’s the timeline?”
He frowned. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You said that when a girl catches a guy during the Hunt, she takes him home and mates him.”
“Right.”
“How long do they have? Is there a... I don’t know, a person in the prowl who checks on the new couple to make sure they’ve had sex and whatever else goes into becoming official mates?”
“You mean is there a set amount of time the pair have to consummate the mating?”
She nodded.
“Twenty-four hours. If they haven’t presented themselves to the queen by sunset the next day to prove they’re mated, one or both will be punished.”
“One or both?”
“It depends on why things didn’t move forward. Say a male didn’t want to mate the female who caught him. She could tell the queen that he refused, and he’d be punished. But if a couple chooses not to mate for a mutual reason, they could also be punished by the queen. It’s not just mating bites, it’s sex. A newly mated couple smell like each other after the mating bites and sex, and the mixed scent can’t be duplicated with only a bite.” He cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to her stomach.
“I don’t have fangs.”
“You can still bite me.”
“Won’t it hurt?”
“I won’t care, I promise.”
She opened her lips and ran her tongue slowly along her top teeth. He stifled a hard shudder that wove up his spine.
“Do I know everything?”
He looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. “You know that we’ve got less than twenty-four hours until I have to make an appearance before the queen. If I show up alone and unmated, I’ll be punished for leaving the territory during the Hunt. But I want to make this really clear – I won’t rush you into anything you’re not ready for. You’re the most important person in my world, and I don’t want to hurt you in any way. “
She tilted her head. “But if we’re not mated according to your prowl’s laws, you’ll be forced to take Sybil as your mate, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, that’s damn unacceptable.”
His cat let out a curious and hopeful yowl in his mind. “Are you certain?”
She inhaled deeply. “Yes. But you have to do something for me first.”
“Anything.”
“Ask me to be yours.”
He wrapped his hands around her wrists and kissed the inside of both palms. Then he flattened her hands on his chest over his heart, and let his cat out a little. His vision sharpened and his gums throbbed, his fingertips tingling with the press of claws. “Thea, will you be my mate? Will you let me mark you, and will you mark me, in the way of my people so that our mating will be within the bounds of our laws? Let me make you mine forever.”
She breathed his name and lowered her head to kiss him. “Yes. I’ll be yours forever. Mark me. Mate me. Love me.”
“My beautiful mate.”