As the night deepened and the food and beer were consumed, some Shifters started slinking into darkness to be alone together. Mating rituals stirred the mating frenzies, Kim had said.

Carly also understood how she and Tiger ended up in his bed under the eaves, moonlight streaming in to caress them.

They were alone in the house, Liam and company still out reveling. To thumping strains of party music coming from next door, Tiger gave himself over to Carly as though theirs would be the last coupling on earth.

Carly didn’t mind, as her body rose to his, her hands gripping the sweet tightness of his bu**ocks to pull him inside her. She arched to him, sweat hot between them, dripping to the sheets.

Tiger wasn’t silent, and tonight he wasn’t gentle. Gripped by the mating frenzy, Tiger drove into her with ferocity, and Carly, bound to him, wound up into frenzy herself.

Tiger opened points of pleasure in Carly she’d never known existed. Sounds escaped her mouth, incoherent, her throat aching with them.

Tiger filled her and loved her, his hands everywhere, his mouth a place of heat. He was one with her, and she with him, and that was all Carly wanted.

After a long time, Tiger growled, his eyes flashing golden as he neared his peak. He continued to rock into her, and she was crying out in joy by the time he spilled his seed. They fell together, spent and shaking, and the room went silent.

Carly lay in the tangle of sheets, her body scalding, with the hottest part of her the place where they were still joined. She ran her hands down Tiger’s back, his skin slick with sweat. But he was whole, healed, hers. The touch of a mate.

His touch healed her in return. Carly had never felt so well, so cared for, in all her life.

Tiger would never desert her. She understood that now. Even when Tiger had been gone, he’d been taking care of her.

Because he cared. Carly’s father had cared for only himself, had seen his family as an obstacle, a distraction. And so he’d left them.

Tiger saw Carly as his anchor in the roiling stream of life, and she now thought of him in the same way. Not because of a magical mate bond, but because he loved her and she loved him. Love, not programming, not magic.

“I love you,” Carly whispered, her voice ragged from their lovemaking. “You know that, right?”

Tiger rose over her again, his rare smile wide, his eyes warm with afterglow. “I do know,” he said. “And I know I love you, Carly. My beautiful mate.”

Carly traced his cheek. She wriggled her hips at the same time, Tiger still rigid inside her. Wildness touched her again.

“You know everything, do you?” she asked, teasing.

“Yes.” His kiss was lazy, warm. “I do.”

“Mmm. Then you know I want to do that again.”

“I want to do it too, mate of my heart. Right now.”

“Yep. Right now.”

“I know something else,” Tiger said as he brushed kisses down her neck.

He slid out of her, the friction delightful, the anticipation of more to come even better. Tiger kissed her br**sts, then moved down to press a long kiss just below her navel.

“What do you know?” Carly asked, stroking his hair, which was already growing back in, black and orange.

Tiger chuckled, his breath warm on her abdomen. “That it’s a boy.”

Carly laughed in delight, the sound ringing through the room. She opened her arms, and Tiger kissed his way back up her body, his welcoming heat covering her as he slid inside her again.

Right where he belonged. The mate bond wound around her heart, and his, and Carly was complete.