Danielle approached and rubbed her hands up his back. He let her reassurance wash over him. When she wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her palms against his stomach from behind, he pressed his hand over hers to keep her there. Her cheek rested between his shoulder blades, and a warm, calming sensation spread from where she touched him, downward until his limbs tingled with the comfort.
“Brighton won’t talk about what happened,” he murmured. “He won’t talk at all. They took his voice from him and scarred his body with their testing. He hasn’t ever said it, but I think he remembers. It’s an unspoken rule between us that we just don’t ever bring it up. Brighton will disappear for days if I do.” Pain seared through Denison’s middle as he remembered the awful years after they’d been taken. He’d been lucky enough to have been spared the memories, but Brighton had gone dim and became a ghost of his former self with whatever demons he was carrying. “When I came around, we were back home. Brighton had gotten me back somehow, but he was cut up real bad. We’d been missing for three days. Three days at the hands of people who knew exactly what we were. This would be your life, Danielle. You would be at risk if anyone ever found out.”
“The others in the Ashe crew… are they like you, too?”
“All but Skyler. She’s a falcon shifter, but she is one of us in all the ways that count.”
“All the ways that count,” Danielle repeated in a hushed voice.
Denison turned and rested his back against the giant evergreen, then pulled her closer, settling her between his splayed legs and against his chest. “I want to be with you. My animal chose you as my mate years ago when we were together. There was never going to be another for me because that’s how it works. If a shifter like me is lucky enough to find a mate, it’s a onetime bond. I have instincts, and they constantly urge me to claim you.”
“Claim me? Is that the biting part Brooke talked about?”
“Yeah.” He swallowed hard and hoped he had the right words to explain. “We can still be together if you’re human. We don’t have to do anything. We could stay just as we are. We could live the rest of our lives happy, just like this. There would be no bite, though. That would Turn you. I don’t need that to be with you. It would hurt, and I don’t want to hurt you. You should know how it is because the guys will bring it up.”
“Are Brooke and Skyler claimed?”
Denison nodded slowly.
Her face fell, and she dropped her gaze to his tattoo. “I can’t belong to the Ashe Crew if I’m not claimed by you, can I?”
His chest hurt as he watched the pain flash across her face. “Not as a human and not according to our traditions. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be with me and live with me. The Ashe Crew would still be your friends, even if you aren’t a shifter.”
“But I wouldn’t be family. Not like you all are.” Her soft brown eyes went round. “Brooke said it was hard to have babies. Would it be hard for us, too?”
He wished the answer was different. Wished he could put her mind at ease and tell her that someday he would be able to give her a cub. He wouldn’t keep the truth from her anymore, though. From here on, she got nothing but honesty from him. She’d earned it. “It would be hard for us. Impossible maybe.”
She dropped her chin to her chest. He’d dealt her a blow, and he rubbed her back in sympathy. He wanted to give her the world, not take things away from her. They’d never talked about having children, but she would make a wonderful mother. She was caring, sensitive, and had deep empathy, and the thought of never watching her swell with his child ripped his guts out.
“We don’t have to decide anything right now,” he murmured. “Even without the mark, you’re mine, and I’m yours. I don’t care if you stay human. You are my mate.”
“Yeah?” She looked up, doe eyes brimming with moisture and full of hope.
If she only knew how deeply she’d burrowed into his heart, she’d never be insecure about his devotion to her again. “Always.”
Chapter Twelve
How was Danielle supposed to settle down and have a professional business meeting with Reynolds and Darren after everything she’d found out over the past twenty-four hours?
Her mind was frazzled with the influx of information she’d absorbed. Vampires! Damn, had she been wrong. She’d made friends with a crew of badass, rip-roaring, protective-as-hell grizzly shifters.
She leaned over the steering wheel of her jeep and laughed out loud. Denison was a lumberjack werebear! Now that was sexy.