Secretly Mated(17)

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “In the kitchen.”

He followed her through the swinging door, and she stopped just inside, not giving him an inch more space than he needed.

Good mate. Good careful mate.

“What is it?” she asked, but her question stumped him.

Telling her what they were was easier in his mind. Saying it out loud seemed impossible.

He stared into her eyes, blue like the sky in summer. They were pretty.

What he wouldn’t give to be one of those bear bouncers out there. Or a wolf. Or hell, even a bird like Cleaver. Anything normal, with normal mating habits. Anything but a brutal werecat. To have the luxury of getting to know her, and making her fall in love with him, and then eventually marking her and starting a family with her.

What a fucking great life that would be.

But that wasn’t their fate.

“Scent me.” His voice was sharper than he’d intended.

“What?” The doctor pulled back a little, and he tempered his tone.

“You need to scent me, doctor.”

Her face contorted into a skeptical grimace. “Why? And if we’re going there, you need to quit calling me doctor. Christina is fine. Or Doc.”

“Fine. Doc. I need you to take in my scent. Trust me, would ya.”

Her calculated gaze combed his face once more looking for warning signs. But when he leaned in slowly, crowding her space, she didn’t back away.

“The blood might’ve masked it,” he murmured. “Try my neck.”

“This is silly.”

“Please.”

Tentatively, she inched her face closer to his skin and he clenched his fists tight to keep from pulling her into him. He didn’t have that right. Wouldn’t ever.

So close her nose almost touched him, she inhaled slow and deep, dragging his scent into her lungs. He held his breath, unable to fathom how she’d react.

Doc exhaled, her heat skating over his skin like a blessing. Shit, he wanted her in his life. Wanted her to trust he wouldn’t hurt her.

Again, she drew in a breath, stilted and stiff this time. As if she wasn’t sure of what she now knew and needed a confirmation. Owyn stood, stock still, waiting for her, praying she didn’t see him as the threat she’d been running from, but rather a person of worth.

She jerked back, her eyes wide and skeptical. Her head shook back and forth in denial, and he could see it there in her gaze.

The terror.

The defeat.

It looked all wrong on her. This wasn’t the doctor who’d skillfully put the broken panther back together. This was a frightened shell of that female.

She took a step backward, bumping into the counter. Her bag fell off her shoulder in the process, and made a loud thud on the floor. Owyn reached to pick it up.

“No,” she breathed. “You stay back. You stay right there. Don’t come any closer.”

“I won’t hurt you.” Maybe if he came right out and said it, she’d hear the truth in his voice. Maybe that’s all it would take.

She swallowed so hard there was an audible gulp. “You’re my mate?” she whispered.

Stay calm. Answer her questions. Show her what you are.

“Yes.”

“No,” she argued, shaking her head. “No. This can’t be. I’ve been so careful. How did you find me?”

Owyn frowned. “I wasn’t looking. I came here to mourn my friend and then got snarled in this fucking lover’s spat. I wasn’t hunting you.”

“Y-you’re lying. You got me to agree to go with you to your clan. You… you set this up.”

What the hell? What did she think, that he had some elaborate plan with that asshole lion to bring his female to the doctor so he could finagle her over to the Ouachitas? It was absurd. She wasn’t thinking clearly or she’d see how crazy that was.

Owyn shook his head, trying to remain calm.

“You’re wrong, Doc. I didn’t know who you were until after you were done sewing up the panther. My animal was too panicked to scent you. This wasn’t on me. None of this was on me.”

She kept shaking her head, her eyes going wider and wider until it looked like they must hurt. “I can’t trust you. I can’t… I can’t…”

“Woman, listen to me,” he demanded. “Hear what I’m saying. I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt my female. I thought I made that clear out there, while we were working. Nothing’s changed except now you know you’re mine.”

Whatever he said straightened her spine like she’d experienced a jolt of electric shock. “I’m not yours. I belong to no one but myself.”

Owyn snapped his mouth shut, absorbing the sting of her swift denial. Of course he never intended on making her fully his, but still, hearing it from her lips wounded his panther.