Chapter Eighteen
Madden
She slammed her front door the same way she’d slammed Corey’s gate. She threw the deadbolt, but then thought better of it. The last thing she needed was Linc breaking down her front door. Oh, she knew all about shifters all right. She’d spent months hanging out with a whole bar full of them.
They were strong and irrational, but man they were a good time. She hadn’t lied; she’d never slept with any of them. They went through girls like she went through underwear. All of them had joked about the fact that Madden was immune to their charm. They’d laughed and said it was because she was meant for another shifter, like that was the only explanation. She thought they were just being sore losers. But either way, they told her about everything, shared every secret they’d sworn to protect, all about shifters and their soul mates. She’d never believed them because she wasn’t meant for anyone.
Madden loved her life. She loved being free. She loved doing whatever she wanted whenever she felt like it. In fact, Spain was the first place she ran away to after college. She’d been young and wild; she’d been high on the freedom and adventure. Spain was the first place there were no rules, no schedule, no expectations. She got to be herself, truly herself, for the first time in her life.
Her front door flew open, banging against the wall. “Baby, I—”
Madden shook her head, taking a few steps away from him. She wasn’t afraid. It was the opposite. She wanted to touch him, console him. And that couldn’t happen.
“No, I’m not your baby.” Maybe in the back of her mind she’d known. She wanted him in a way she couldn’t explain. Even though she’d never admit it to herself, she felt lonely when he wasn’t around. No. She wouldn’t let this happen; she couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Linc, really I am. But you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not anyone’s forever.”
Linc shut and locked her door, sitting down on her couch with his head in his hands. “I wish you were right.”
“I want you to leave.” The words felt bad on her tongue. Her brain wanted him to leave, but her body wanted him to stay.
“I can’t.” He sounded so defeated, so utterly lost.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t be the girl you think I am.” Madden felt the sting of tears but blinked them away. Crying wasn’t who she was, just like forever wasn’t either. “I like my life the way it is.”
He scoffed, throwing his hands out wide. “You think I don’t like mine? My life is golden. I go to the bar and laugh and drink and pick up random chicks whenever I feel like it. I leave at the drop of a hat and go sailing in the Caribbean. I drive too fast and play ball all fucking year. I want to keep living my life, just the way I have been. Just the way I like it. But it’s too late.”
She shook her head. “It’s not.” It couldn’t be. There had to be something they could do. Stop it or reverse it.
Linc let out a humorless laugh. “Those friends of yours explained that shifters mate for life. But did they explain anything else? Did they tell you that if we don’t complete this bond, it’ll hurt us both? We’ll experience actual physical pain, excruciating pain. Did they tell you that I’ll go crazy? I’ll try to hurt my friends. I’ll lose my mind. Did they tell you that if you leave me, if you run, I could die?” Linc stood and crossed the room, standing in front of her. Pleading with her to understand. “This is who I am, Madden. This is my DNA. This is embedded in me so deep that there is no escaping it. I don’t want this for you. I promise you I don’t. But there is nothing I can do.” She bit her lip, his desperation making her tears threaten once again. “You hold my life in your hands.”
She shook her head, taking a few more steps back. “I don’t want it, Linc. I don’t want to own your life, your heart. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I can’t be someone’s forever. I don’t know how.”
He got down on his knees in front of her and she started to vibrate with emotion. “I’m not asking you to make your decision tonight. I’m asking that you don’t push me away. That you don’t kick me out. Please, baby. I wouldn’t survive it right now.”
She wanted to flee. She wanted to get on the next plane out of Colorado and go to Ireland. New Zealand. Anywhere but where she was currently—standing in her living room with Linc down on his knees, begging her not to destroy him. It was all too much. Too intense. “You can stay here, for tonight.” She needed to think all this through. She didn’t want to be his soul mate, but she refused to be the cause of his pain either. She cared about him; even she couldn’t deny that much. “You can stay on the couch. Will that help?”
Linc nodded and she turned on her heel, leaving him alone. She went into her room and shut the door. She hated that a small part of her ached once that door was closed. She hated that she felt it, felt the connection between them. Was Linc right? Would she actually hurt if he left?
She showered, standing under the hot spray until the water turned cold while Linc’s words played in her head on a constant loop. He would die without her? It would be torture to be apart?
Was that all true?
To be honest, when Madden had learned about shifters she hadn’t really cared all that much. For some reason it hadn’t shocked her—it was sort of no big deal. She had been young and happy and carefree. She loved spending time with those guys. She didn’t give a shit if they were a little different from her. She reveled in it. Now she wondered if what they’d said had been right all along, about her being immune to their charms because she was meant for another. Was it all true because she was always Linc’s?
After she got ready for bed Madden sat down with her back against her door. “Linc?”
“Yeah?”
She wasn’t surprised to find him directly on the other side. She knew he’d be there. “When my friends told me they were shifters, I didn’t care. I wasn’t shocked. I wasn’t scared. Is that because…”
“Because you were made for this life, made for one?”
Madden leaned her head on the door, rolling it to the side. “I never slept with them, with any of them.” She didn’t know why she wanted him to know that, but she had felt compelled to say it again. To make sure he knew without a shadow of a doubt.
“I believe you.”
“Corey and Dom are mated?”
“Yes.” He paused briefly. “And Molly and Keller.”
Madden should have seen it, since she’d been around a few bonded couples in Spain. She knew what it looked like. They moved together, always in sync, never far apart, like protection of each other was second nature. “How did they take it? Molly and Corey, how did they react when they found out?”
“Corey took it like she takes everything that comes her way.”
Madden smiled, picturing Corey watching Dom shift for the first time. “She dove in head first and never looked back?”
He let out a small chuckle. “Exactly. And Molly? She freaked a little, but that was because Keller accidentally claimed her one night and then had to not only tell her he was a shifter, but also that she was his mate.”
She wanted to ask how you accidentally claimed someone, but she figured that was a conversation for another time. “What did you mean when you said it was too late?”
“We’ve been together too many times.” Linc’s voice sounded tired and sad. “The process has already started. The bond is already in motion.”
She heard the unmistakable sound of liquid bubbling in a bottle. “Are you drinking my wine?”
“Yep.” He made a sound that was close to a gag. “We’re out of beer.”
We’re. Was it that simple? He’d decided she was his forever and now everything was we and ours? Would everything between them be that easy? That natural? She’d felt it the other day, felt the ease at being in each other’s company. She thought it’d simply been sexual chemistry. “How is it completed? The bonding?”
“We need to have sex, with nothing between us.”
Nothing between them? “That’s why you kept forgetting the condom.” It hadn’t happened initially; it was only the last day that he’d done that. “So I guess that’s the instinct you keep talking about?”
“Yes.” Another gulp. “I didn’t realize it at first, that you were mine, and then even when I did, I kept ignoring it. Willing it to go away, to not be true. You have to believe me, baby. I never wanted this for myself. Let alone for you.”
That time when he called her baby, she intentionally let it go. It seemed like such an insignificant protest right now. “Does that mean we can keep having sex, as long as you wear one? We can just keep going like we have been and everything will be okay?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” Another gulp, another gag. “Or maybe the pain will set in.”
“Would you ever force me?” Madden cracked the door and grabbed the mostly empty wine bottle from his hands and then shut it again. She downed what was left. “Like rape?”
“No. Never. I’d never hurt you, baby.” Linc’s head thumped against the wood. “But if I see you in pain, I’ll instinctually do whatever I can to stop it. All that matters to me is that you’re okay, always. That’s kind of what happened between Kel and Molly.”
Madden did want him. Even now when she was scared and primed to run, she still wanted him. Pain or no pain, she knew she’d let him in eventually. She was powerless to keep him out. “Baze is a shifter too? And Riley?”
“Most of the baseball team, the dean…This school was built by shifters, for shifters.”
The exhaustion, the weariness in his voice was tugging on her heart. She needed to remember that he hadn’t chosen any of this either. He was a victim of fate, as much as she was really. “Linc, I’m, uh, I don’t know what to say. I never, uh, I never wanted this.”
“Me neither.” She could hear him adjusting his back against the door. “But if it had to be someone, I’m really glad it’s you.”
His words weren’t all that romantic, but they struck her in the feels nonetheless. They were so much alike, the two of them. Both happy with their carefree existence. Neither with any plans to ever settle down. Their reasons were rooted from different places, but their commitment to non-commitment? Basically the same. “Do you want to sleep in here? With me?”
“Are you ready to complete the bond?” Madden couldn’t mistake the hope in his voice.
“No.”
“Then I think it’s safer if I stay out here, at least for tonight.”
She knew that by “out here” he meant against her bedroom door.
Madden got up and climbed under her covers. They still smelled like Linc. She inhaled deeply; she loved his scent. It was expensive cologne and rich leather. She’d known him for a little over a week and had spent the last three days consumed with him and his sexy body.
She’d had more orgasms than she could count. He made her laugh. He understood her in a way no one else could. He was a loyal friend. Well, mostly loyal. He’d said his friends were more like his family. But what he’d meant was they were his pack, which made them more than family. The shifters in Spain, they were so close. They ate together and lived close, and they never went a day without seeing each other. Corey was already like her family, like her sister. But the rest of them, they would be her family too, her pack.
Was it that simple? Could she just forget everything she thought she’d wanted out of her life, all of her hopes for her future? Throw all her single ways out the window and jump head first into a new, mated life with Linc?