“When Dante talked about you staying and I realized how much I wanted you to it spooked the hell out of me and stupid shit starting coming out of my mouth.”

She could understand him being spooked. The second she realized she cared for Trey, she’d shit her pants. Even now she didn’t want to use the L word even though she knew it was what she felt.

“All I know is that I don’t want you to leave. If you do I’ll hunt you down and bring you back, Taryn, I shit you not, I will. Not because of our deal or my wolf, but because I want you here with me.” Then abruptly he reared back and began hammering into her, capturing her cries with his mouth as he crushed her lips with his. He groaned when she began sucking on his tongue, thinking of something else he’d like her to suck. Of course she was well aware of that. “If you do that again I’ll pull out and shove my c**k in your mouth.”

She beat his back with her legs. “I’ll bite it off and shove it up your ass!”

“Then who would f**k you like this?” Drawn to one of his marks on her neck, he bent down and sucked at it, loving how her muscles tightened around his c**k and how her nails pressed into his back. But, like always, they never broke the skin. “You know what I want, Taryn,” he growled as leaned over her, curling his hips as he increased the pace of his pounding. “Give it to me.”

Taryn knew what he meant, but she clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.

His eyes flashed wolf. “Bite me, mark me, now.”

“No!”

He tangled both hands in her hair and tugged hard. “Do it, Taryn. Put your f**king brand on me.”

She writhed beneath him, growling, “Fuck you!”

He gentled his voice a little and pinned her gaze with his. “Why fight it? Why?”

“This isn’t real,” she almost sobbed.

“Wrong, baby. This is as real as it gets.”

“I told you I won’t always placate your wolf!”

“He needs it, baby. I want it. I need it.”

Taryn shook her head again, knowing he couldn’t realize what he was asking, couldn’t realize what might happen. Nor could he realize that she was fighting herself just as much as she was fighting him. “It’ll never fade!”

“I don’t want it to. I want to look in the mirror and see it there. I want everyone else to see it there.”

“You want me to mark you so another female can cover it with hers? Fuck that!”

He arched a brow tauntingly. “You don’t like the idea of another female marking me? Then leave your brand there, warn them off, show them who I belong to.”

“It might start the imprinting! You don’t want that!” It surprised her that his expression suddenly softened.

“You’re not listening to anything I’m saying, baby. I’m not giving you up. Even if we don’t imprint I’m not giving you up, I can’t. If another man touches you I’ll kill him. I will. I’ll rip his f**king throat out and I won’t even care. You’re mine, Taryn, and you’re not going anywhere. I need you here with me, and I need your brand on me. Do it, Taryn! Give it to me!”

Whining in defeat Taryn lifted her head and sank her teeth into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

It took everything Trey had to stop from coming there and then. “Fuck, yeah. More!”

She raked her claws down his back just like she and her wolf had wanted to from the beginning.

“Again, Taryn!” This time she bit down onto his shoulder but she didn’t release him and he loved the possessiveness of that act. Pounding into her even harder he demanded, “Come for me, Taryn.” He clamped his teeth over his claiming mark and she screamed around the flesh of his shoulder as her climax tore into her. That together with her muscles closing around his c**k had him erupting inside her once again.

And that was when it happened. Taryn released his shoulder with a gasp as her entire body clenched. Suddenly she was struck by a sort ice cream headache and then seconds later it eased and a feeling of warmth washed over her. Like how she felt when she was wrapped up in a blanket with a hot water bottle under her feet and a mug of hot chocolate in her hands – snug, contented, and sheltered.

She lifted her head and rested her chin on his chest, only then realizing he had rolled them over and she was lazed over him. “I -” Nothing more came out. Shock had apparently taken away her ability to speak. She could have told herself that what was happening was the imprinting bond beginning to develop, but she knew it would be a lie. She knew that what was happening was more than that, knew it as sure as she knew that she needed oxygen to survive – it was a knowing that basic and primitive. A bond was developing between them alright. A true mate bond.

Should she really be so surprised? Wasn’t this what her wolf and her body had hinted at all along? There had been plenty of signs. Like the way her wolf reacted to Trey’s scent – hell, she’d even been calm when he kidnapped her – and constantly craved his company and touch. Like the way her body had from the very beginning reacted rather enthusiastically to him. Like the way she had somehow been positive that he would never hurt her – for God’s sake, the psycho actually made her feel safe.

She realized then that, on some level, she had known she was speaking the truth when she told Shaya that the awful state she had slipped into after Joey’s death had been because of the double blow of losing her mom at the very same time. Due to having spent her entire life believing Joey had been her true mate, it had never occurred to her on a more conscious level that she could have been wrong – especially when Trey had also always believed that his own true mate had been another shifter. Apparently fate liked to play jokes.

Considering how long Trey had been imprint-phobic, he would have expected to shit his pants if he somehow discovered that his true mate hadn’t died at all, that he had found her. Instead, he strangely found himself at peace. Another strange thing was that he wasn’t so shocked to find out that Summer hadn’t been his mate. Thinking back, he realized that it had been her mom who had spoken the words ‘true mates’. Trey himself had never claimed that, never felt the tugging of that bond. He had taken what she said as truth because he hadn’t known any better – he was fourteen, he knew nothing of mating bonds, and wasn’t all that familiar with ‘feelings’. As he gazed up at Taryn, he marvelled at just how…happy…he was to have been wrong about Summer.