My words came out harsher than I’d intended, but now was the time to be honest, while we could. Atlas looked like she couldn’t care less about what I was saying. Instead, she was digging in her jeans pockets, looking for the Creator knew what.

“I’m sorry what I’m saying is so boring to you. Something I can help you find?”

All movement stopped. “Found it!”

She pulled out a hair band from her tiny pocket and swirled and twirled her hair until it was a ridiculous mess on top of her head. There was no way she was getting any helmet on her head now.

Her brown eyes squinted at me. “It wasn’t boring. Stop being like that. Something you should know about me: I can’t focus with my hair all over the place. It drives me insane. Give me a second to gather my thoughts on all of this.”

“While you’re thinking, let’s go see the falls.”

I reached out to take her hand, but she moved it away from me. “I can’t think when you’re touching me. I need to think.”

My bear wanted to break free from his human chains and claim her for real right then and there. She couldn’t think while I was touching her?

Damn if that didn’t do it for me.

It took about ten more minutes through small climbs up rocks and turns through little caverns between hills to actually get to the waterfall. The sound of the water crashing into the pool beneath it boomed in my ears. Iridescent sprays of every blue and white in nature pummeled down and with the help of the sun, created rainbows all around us. There wouldn’t be many humans around here in the November weather. The leaves, long ago turned sunset and gold, had mostly fallen to the ground and left the trees bare. The falls were even more beautiful in the winter, with the snow blanketing the rocks, turning the waterfall into stalactites of ice.

“It’s stunning,” Atlas said, and then grabbed the sleeve of my shirt. Still not technically touching my skin.

“There’s a lot of stunning going on today.”

“Stop. That’s not helping the thinking.”

I chuckled, harder than I had in a while. “I didn’t know my mate required all this silence and not touching to think. Go on, then.”

I took a few steps along the edge of the pool and crouched down to look at the tiny fish that were found nowhere else in the world. They were conjured by magic and required no food. The perfect illusions for this place.

My shoes came off next, and I rolled up the legs of my pants, sat down, and put my feet in the water like I used to when I was a kid. It was frigid, but with our higher shifter temperature, that didn’t detract me from wanting to get in. Dolrich used to climb to the top and jump from the top of the falls, disturbing everything and everyone below.

I was content simply to be there.

“I did intend to mate you and leave.” It was less of a statement and more of a truth blurt. As though she had to get it out of her system before there was time to think about it again.

“You did or you do?”

“What about you? Do you intend to become the next alpha or just sit around while your cousin quietly takes over? It doesn’t automatically go to the heir, you know. He can choose someone else—someone who is taking diplomatic trips with him and basically being his shadow.”

“How did you know? What do you know?”

Atlas’s eyes rolled almost all the way to the back of her head. “I’m the only cinnamon bear to come to the castle not as a servant. You think my kin don’t speak to me?”

I looked back at the water, trying to think of the few times that she’d been alone in the castle. There hadn’t been very many, that I knew of.

“Who?”

She shot me a look that said please.

“So you can’t trust me.”

My skin tingled with needing her to be near for this conversation. It was probably the mating mark, but my will, when it came to my mate, was shredding by the second.

“I can trust you, Harrison. I can’t trust the alpha. The more information you know, the more you can’t claim ignorance to.”

She shucked her shoes and mimicked my action, rolling her pants up and sitting next to me. I held my breath while she did until she threaded her fingers in my hand, still lazily laying on my thigh, desperate for her touch.

“The less I know, the less I’m responsible for.”

“Yes. Do you know where the servants live? Someplace called the Terrace?”

I knew roundabout where it was, but had never been there. “I think I know where it is.”

“Oscar invited me there. Wants me to see how they live. He wouldn’t tell me any more than that.”

The growl that ripped from my throat couldn’t be stopped. Another male inviting my mate to his home wasn’t something that was done, especially to the Xaviers.

My snob was showing.

“You did not just growl at me.”

“No, I didn’t. I actually growled at the thought of you being in another male’s den.”

She seemed shaken. “Oh . . . does this help?” A silky-skinned hand ran under the back of my shirt and across my back a few times. I closed my eyes, reveling in the warmth and utter comfort it gave me.

“You calmed him—us—me and my bear.”

“My mom used to do that to my dad, before he died.”

I nodded. Touch was a big deal to bear shifters. This was more.

“That means something, doesn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. She knew it. Our inner animals were only calmed by our true mates.

It changed everything.

“If I’m not alpha, will you leave me?”