“Are you…”
She couldn’t meet his eyes and it pissed her off.
“Are you angry?” His tone was bewildered.
“Yes,” she snapped. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back in bed.”
“You’re red as fucking Rudolph’s nose right now. It’s cute as hell.”
Josie rolled her eyes, but she could feel the blush that crept past her cheeks and down her neck.
“Bed.”
He didn’t make any move to help her, so she took a step on her own.
But in a careful move, Magic tucked one arm around her shoulders and the other behind her legs, lifting her as easy as if she was a ball of cotton.
Josie gasped.
He cradled her close against his solid chest and there was nowhere for her arms to go except around his neck.
“You’ve done enough walking.”
“It’s fine. You don’t need to—”
“Hush,” he whispered, staring intently at her lips. “Just hush.”
He was ordering her around again, but there was something different about his tone. Gentle. He wasn’t telling her to shut up. He was urging her to allow this moment between them, this soft connection.
He didn’t move toward the bed. He didn’t move at all except to breath. In his arms, her embarrassment faded, and she felt something wonderful take its place. Their bond, it was growing. She knew it would with every minute they spent together, with every give and take they exchanged, every thing that they shared. It was the way the mating bond worked.
To a human like her—or could she even think of herself like that anymore?—it seemed miraculous. The bond could be used to heal, physically or otherwise. It could be used to sense danger, to provide needs to one another. It could be used to… give pleasure.
And apparently, it could bring back the dead.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Mandi wasn’t back. Just her animal that she’d passed on to Josie ten years ago. Her animal that was mated to Magic’s, and would do anything to save him from his downward spiral, even circumvent death.
Magic drew in a breath. “Your cat scent is strengthening,” he murmured.
She nodded, holding his gaze. “It will, the more we bond.” She knew it was how she would become fully merged with the animal.
She should be scared. Terrified of being something other. A mutant, not born into this as the other shifters were. Except she wasn’t afraid at all. In fact, everything about it felt right. Like this was her purpose. The thing she’d been searching for all those years when she was floundering.
“Josie…” A crease formed between his dark brows, and the shadows she normally saw in his gaze returned.
Seeing them made her sad. So sad, her stomach cramped. He’d been through so much pain. Fought through it alone. Ached inside, with no reprieve. Lashed out at those who loved him. And through a bond as thin as an angel’s whisper, Mandi had experienced it all along with him. Stuck in a place between death and the afterlife, unable to pass on with her mate so deeply hurt, there’d been no sense of years passing. No linear movement of time, and she was able to see Magic’s life from any point in the past, present, or future. She’d seen it all.
Only Mandi knew what inner turmoil Magic endured.
And now, Josie.
She knew how guilty he felt over his mate’s suicide. How much he mourned never having young. How dedicated he was to remaining faithful to her even in death. How utterly alone he felt in the midst of his people and the bustling lodge. How jealous he was that Renner could be so certain about staying faithful to Bethany. But most of all, she knew how badly he wanted to keep what happened to Mandi from ever happening again.
What he didn’t know was Mandi chose to leave the way she did because she’d thought it would save him. He wasn’t agreeing with the mating, wasn’t thriving. And her demands weren’t something he was willing to meet. She was sad and hopeless, and wanted to give him a do-over. Except there was only one way to un-mate.
But she’d underestimated his love for her, underestimated their bond. When she died, the play-hard part of Magic died with her, and in death, he’d given her what he couldn’t give her in life.
His commitment.
He’d proven himself, and now all Mandi wanted was for him to move on, to be happy and to help his clan be happy. So she could finally move on.
What they had was over, and it was time for him to try again.
It was Josie’s job to make him see that.
“I don’t understand,” he breathed. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I know.” Her voice came out strained, emotions that were both hers and the cat’s wrecking her. “I’m still figuring it out myself.”