As Juanita slid her bright red lips around his shaft, Major wondered if he’d died and gone to heaven.

Seriously.

Heaven had to feel like this, didn’t it?

He ran his hands through her hair, gripping tight to the back of her skull, and pulling her into him so she took everything he could give.

His mate’s mouth, his mate’s tongue… all of it was like an incendiary device to his nervous system. But it was ‘the mate’ part that made the difference, and Juanita, well, she had to be his mate, didn’t she?

She smelled so much better than any woman he’d ever fucked, and the way he felt for her, if it wasn’t affection and caring, then he didn’t know what was.

As she started to heavily suck his shaft, slurping him against her cheeks in a way that had him seeing stars, his cell phone blared out a siren.

It was the tone he couldn’t ignore. Dammit to hell!

He jerked his hips, rocking them into her mouth, hoping like hell he could cum, but the mood was blasted. His thoughts weren’t on his dick but why his Prez, Mars, was calling him on the SOS line this late at night.

There were two ringtones he couldn’t ignore—the Prez’s and the SOS line. Both were manned by Mars himself, but both meant different things.

Mars’s line was regular MC shit. Even if he’d have wanted to, he couldn’t ignore it. Not without getting shit for it later on. The SOS line meant someone was ill or in need of care, and as he was the Clan healer, that meant he needed to get his butt back to the clubhouse.

It was selfish as fuck for him to not immediately pick up the phone, to hesitate over pulling away from Juanita’s sweet mouth and find out what was going on. But ever since he’d found her, she’d been fucking with his head.

His mate… She was the center of his universe. How could everything not revolve around her? He’d been spending every spare moment with her, desperate to be close to her, to learn everything about her, and being parted from her was hell.

The phone buzzed again, and this time, he knew he couldn’t ignore it. He gently collected Juanita’s hair in his hand and pulled her lips off his shaft.

A groan escaped him when a strand of saliva stuck to his cock and bound him to her for several seconds until it fell against her chin. She wiped it away and with a pout demanded, “Really? You have to go now?”

“You know I do,” he said with a sigh. The last thing he wanted was to leave at this moment. Jesus. But if the Prez called him on that line then he was needed. Stat.

“Where do you want me?” he asked the minute he grabbed his phone and connected the call. Juanita sat there eying his shaft like it was a bowl of cream and she was a hungry kitten. Awkwardly, he zipped up and covered himself one-handed because that look was going to get him in whole helluva lot of trouble. He staggered away from her and sank down onto the crappy vinyl sofa.

“Get your fucking ass to Sisters of Mercy. We think Christie has gone into labor.”

The call cut, but Major didn’t notice. He’d frozen up at his Prez’s words, as well as the threat imbued in them.

Mars was blaming him? For Christie going into labor?

“What’s wrong, cariño?” Juanita asked, bouncing away from the bed, her tits and ass jiggling with every step as she came to sit on his lap.

He couldn’t say anything. Not because words weren’t possible but because Juanita knew he was a rider but didn’t know he was with The Nomads MC, which also meant she didn’t know he was a Shifter.

He should have told her. He thought she was his mate, but something held him back. Something stopped him from telling her, from claiming her. He didn’t know what it was that was stopping him from acting, just that his instincts, so sharp around her, weren’t telling him to make the move yet.

He cleared his throat when she nuzzled her nose into his chin, loving the contact and loving how she gave it so freely.

It had been so long since a woman had shown him any affection. The bunnies at the clubhouse weren’t into that. They wanted to be fucked, hard and long. They knew the score. Unless they were mated to one of the brothers, there was no chance of them becoming an old lady. Not that there’d been many around since Mars had become Prez, so even minimal affection from the club whores was a thing of the past for the brothers of The Nomads MC.

For Major, though, who’d been around way too long on this earth, the hard and long fucking was only an enticement if the woman he’d been waiting for most of his goddamn life was the recipient of his attentions.

He was sure that was Juanita.

So sure that he was choosing to forget she was affiliated to one of the local cartels—the one that was currently at war with his MC. Like forgetting was a goddamn option... It rode him hard, his treachery to his bros, but what the fuck could he do? He was jammed between a rock and a hard place. His situation made 127 Hours look soft-core.

His bear grumbled at him, sending shockwaves through his nervous system. The creature didn’t approve of Juanita, but at the same time, it was the bear who made him feel so certain that she was his mate. He was so fucking confused. Nothing made any sense any more, yet equally, things had only started to feel more on the level since he’d met her three months ago.

Goddess, this was no time to be dithering about shit like this.

Christie was in labor.

One of his brothers’ mates was giving birth to the first cub to grace their MC in decades, and she was premature.

As he ran the math, he kissed Juanita on the temple. “I’ll see you later, babe,” he told her absentmindedly, rushing down the hall to the door with more speed than haste. He saw how pissed off she was but chose to deal with that later. She’d forgive him. She always did. His Prez? Not so much.

As he exited the building, he didn’t do his usual cursory checks, just ran out and headed for his bike.

The minute the baby was between his thighs, he throttled the engine and moved on his way. Sisters of Mercy wasn’t far from where Juanita lived, and though he wouldn’t be much use in a hospital—his talents belonged more in the field—he prayed that he could help some.

* * *

“Where the fuck have you been?” Mars hissed the minute he made it onto the hospital ward.

He’d got a text telling him where to go, and the minute his boots had come to a screeching halt, Mars had been there, ready to bust him a new one.

“Nowhere. I was just out,” he answered, giving his usual bullshit non-answer, something Mars seemed to recognize.

He gritted his teeth and said, “This isn’t the time, Major, but I want to know what the fuck this is about.”

Before Major could do more than frown in confusion, Mars shoved his phone in face. There was a photo of him leaving Juanita’s building. Her street sign was clear in the shot too.

“I can explain,” he said, voice hoarse as he took in the repercussions of what he was seeing.

A picture spoke a thousand words, but in this instance, he needed ten thousand, and even that might not be enough to save his ass.

The Nomads MC were more than just bikers. They were brothers, not by blood but by Bear. Most of them had been running around together for the last century in one form or another, and Major was one of those old fuckers who’d seen most of the MC’s major history.

Their last Prez, Jefferson, had been a real piece of work. He’d gotten the MC into some nasty shit with one of the cartels—Juanita’s, to be precise. Trafficking women had never been their business, but Jefferson had been a greedy fuck.

When Mars had taken over as Prez, challenging the bastard and winning, everything had come tumbling down. The MC had gone to war with the cartel, and some local gangs affiliated with the Martinez cartel had declared themselves too.

Everything had been going to shit ever since. Major being spotted in that part of town wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, but it was pretty high up there.

This was why he had so many fucking precautious when he left Juanita’s place, why he checked and double checked his surroundings. But Mars’s SOS call had made him forget himself, and this was the result.

When Mars saw Major’s reaction, he jerked his chin up and stated, “Out in the hall.” They had the attention of the brothers and their mates who were camping out for news, so Major complied, eager to escape their curiosity when he’d fucked up so badly.

“No explanations?” Mars demanded the instant the door shut behind them, a sneer to his tone that had Major grimacing.

“Plenty. She’s my mate.”

That was the one excuse that would save his ass. The only justification for being on enemy territory, in a known affiliate’s apartment… A mate.

Mars reared back. “Your mate is a Martinez gangbanger?”

Major closed his eyes, ducking his head in shame. “Yeah.”

“You’ve bonded her?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Not yet?” Mars frowned at him and then, out of nowhere, he slammed forward, his meaty hand closing around Major’s gullet as he pinned him to the hospital wall.

The bang had the staff and other people in the corridor jolting, but they spied the cuts, the leather, and their size, and as one backed off.

What they didn’t see, they couldn’t disclose on, and everyone knew that was best when it came to MC business.

Major didn’t struggle. He didn’t deserve to. He’d been lying. For months now. He was lucky Mars hadn’t gone for his balls.

“How long has this been going on? You’ve been disappearing on our asses for months. Is she who you’ve been seeing?”

He winced at the venom behind the word ‘she’ but nodded.

“If you’re bullshitting me…?”

“Why the fuck would I?” he demanded, jutting his chin forward. “It’s not something to lie about, is it? I’m not proud my mate is one of those fucking cartel foot soldiers. It kills me every fucking minute of every fucking day. Dammit, Mars.” His words were hoarse from emotion, not just the pressure the Prez had on his throat.

“You see, this is what confuses me.” Mars paused, ceased squeezing his hand, and backed off, studying Major all the while like he was a riddle rather than a brother. “You really believe she’s your mate?”

The question had him freezing as his hand went on its way, reaching up to rub his throat. “Of course I do. What kind of question is that?”

Mars shook his head. “That’s the most important question, Major.”

“What are you getting at, Prez?”

“There’s no waiting to seal the bond, Major. You’ve heard the tales of Annette and me. Then Christie and Mundo, who about lost their minds when they had to wait for him to make it out of jail…”

“Kiko waited.”

“For Mischa’s sake. Because she’d been traumatized.”

“Well, that’s what I’m doing. Waiting. Juanita’s had it hard too. She was recruited at twelve. They threatened her baby brother and her mama.”

“I’m not saying that ain’t shit, bro. It fucking sucks. But at the same time, it’s not as bad as what Mischa went through. She was shipped across the Atlantic and promised a new life only to figure out she was gonna be a whore somewhere in the States. When we found her… You know the state they were all in. Kiko had no choice but to go gently.”

“This Juanita, she’ll be tough as nails by now. There’s no need to wait. Your Bear must be riding you hard to claim her.” When Major didn’t leap to state the beast was, Mars tilted his head to the side, seeming to understand Major’s silence. “What makes you think she’s your mate, Major?” His tone was soft, not with warning or a threat, but with an affection that had grown between the brothers over tens of years spent together. Not just on the back of bikes, but as kin.

Major had known Mars all his life. They weren’t blood, but they might as well have been.

“I feel when I’m around her,” he whispered, tone hoarse.

“You see, that’s what has me concerned. We all know how it gets after a while. I know exactly what you mean by ‘not feeling’. It’s weird as fuck to suddenly stop giving a shit about the things that mattered most to you, but it happens so gradually you don’t notice until it stops. But… and it’s a big but, Major, when I met Annette, she didn’t just make me feel. It was like a fucking geyser was going off in my head. I wanted to fuck her, yeah, and I sure as hell needed to get my claim on her, but I needed her to know she was mine. I had to share what I was with her, have her know it and embrace it too. When I was around her, I did more than feel. Jesus, I started the rebellion against Jefferson because of Mundo and what he said to make me see that as VP, it was my duty to straighten shit out. But I ended it because of her.

“Bro, you do more than just feel. You can’t stop feeling. If she hasn’t overtaken your world, your entire fucking universe, then she isn’t your mate.”

Silence fell between them, broken up by the squeak of trainers against the lino floor and the soft swishing sound of a mop being swirled in the distance. The low hum of chatter from the nurse’s station and a TV on low in one of the nearby wards was pretty much all he could hear, and no way was it enough for him to switch focus from Mars’s words.

“She makes me feel,” he repeated, this time his voice so hoarse it sounded like nails scratching down a blackboard.

“It’s not enough, brother,” Mars told him gently. “It might seem it, but you’ll know when you meet her. This is just a pale imitation. She’s just a pale imitation.”

“Don’t fucking say that!” Major yelled and leapt for Mars, not stopping until he’d pinned the Prez against the wall. This time, the bang had a door opening and heavy footsteps pounding down the corridor.

“It’s okay, guys. It’s okay.” Mars’s words were for the bikers ready to tear Major a new hide. He could feel the aggression aimed at his back as well as the confusion.

“What the hell’s going on?” Kiko, the club’s VP, shouted.

“Major, what the fuck are you doing?” Graver, a council member, demanded.

Mars held up his hands. “It’s okay. Go back to the waiting room. We’ll be there in a minute.” He never took his eyes from Major’s. Not even when the heavy boots pounded their way down the hall again. Not even when Major’s hands squeezed a little tighter. “You know what I’m saying is true, Major. You know it.”

“She’s…” He gulped, felt his entire body tense with fury at his Prez’s words, but at the same time, his Bear wasn’t in play.

If he was, he’d have shifted—in defense of his mate.

He hadn’t shifted though. The beast had barely stirred in his skin.

Mars seemed to know what was running through Major’s head because he said, “Why isn’t your Bear demanding I apologize, Major? Why isn’t he calling mine to battle?”

He clenched his jaw. “Don’t push me, Prez.”

“I’m pushing you to see the truth. I’m not happy about this situation, Major. If she was your mate, Cartel foot soldier or not, we’d have to figure out a way to accept her in the MC. It would be complicated as fuck, but we’d do it. But she isn’t your mate. Your Bear’s reaction, or lack of it, is telling me that.”

Major shook his head. “She is. I can feel it, the bond, every time I’m with her. It’s just taking a while to grow. That’s all.”

Mars’s hands came up, and using the strength that made him Prez, that had helped him challenge and defeat another Clan leader, he pushed out of Major’s hold and wrapped him up in a hug.

Slapping him on the back, the Prez whispered, “I wish she was, buddy. Even though it would be a logistical nightmare, I wish you’d found her. But she isn’t your mate. And you need to come to terms with that.”

Major gulped then pressed his forehead to Mars’s shoulder. “I need her, Mars.”

“No. You don’t. You need your mate. There’s a difference. Trust me.” He sighed, squeezed Major’s shoulder, and said, “Let’s leave this conversation here, all right? We won’t talk about it again.”

Major grunted. “That’s not right. It’s not fair. I-If she isn’t…” He gulped. “I’ve been fraternizing with the enemy.”

Mars snorted. “You been giving away MC secrets or just blasting her with too much cum?” Major winced, which had Mars chuckling. “Yeah, I thought as much. We’re all entitled to make mistakes, Major. Let’s just leave this at the door, okay, and not bring it back in again?”

He lifted his head, ashamed to feel the tears burning the backs of his eyes. “I want her to be mine,” he whispered again.

“I know you do. Trust me, I understand. But I also understand what a real mate bond is like. There’s no comparison, Major. When you find her, you’ll know. There’s no second guessing. No ifs, buts, or maybes. It’s fact. Irrefutable fact. There’s no getting away from it. It overtakes everything. She becomes your everything.”

Some of what Mars was saying penetrated the thick gloom of grief that had overtaken Major. Juanita, for all she’d come to mean to him, hadn’t overtaken his world. Sure, he’d pushed aside his duties to the MC for her, had fucked her knowing she was an enemy of the club, and had snuck around like a teenager with a date his parents didn’t approve of, but he hadn’t been able to seal the deal.

Bonding her had never been an option.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out when Mars’s words hit more than home. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just get your head in line, okay? No one needs to know about this. We’ll keep it between ourselves, but Major, you need to get your shit together, okay? We need our healer back on top form.”

Nodding, Major rubbed at the back of his neck and decided a change of subject was in order if he wasn’t about to start bawling in the corridor. That it was even a possibility had him tensing up. “What’s wrong with Christie?”

Mars, sensing how on edge Major was, just said, “We don’t know yet. She’s been transferred from the ER to a ward, so that has to mean something, right?”

Major shook his head. “Not necessarily. You know human hospitals don’t have much of a clue what to do with Shifters, never mind humans mated to a Shifter, and even worse, carrying one too.”

“Yeah. I know. I was just trying not to think of that.”

Major grimaced. “I should have been there.”

“Yeah, you should.” Mundo, Christie’s mate, appeared from a doorway. “But then, Christie should have gone to the OB/GYN like she’d been telling me she has.” Mundo ran a tired hand through his hair. “This is all kinds of fucked up, brothers.”

Mars and Major convened on him. Major brought him into a swift one-armed hug, and said, “She’ll be okay. She’s carrying a Shifter. You know how tough we are.”

“It’s not the cub I’m worried about. It’s her.” He rubbed his eyes, digging in a little too hard. “You know how delicate humans are.”

“I heard that!”

The holler came from behind the closed door and had both men snickering in amusement. Mundo grimaced, but it turned into a reluctant grin.

“I thought she had a super nose, not super ears.”

“Yeah, me too.” He opened the door and to the room at large declared, “You can bitch at me when I’ve forgiven you for not taking care of yourself.”

“That gives me, what? A thousand years penitence? Jesus, Mundo. Pregnant women in Africa don’t have OB/GYNs.”

Mundo’s mouth dropped open, then sputtering, he managed to roar out, “You can’t seriously be using that shit as an excuse? We’re in fucking Houston, not Downtown Nigeria.”

“Nigeria’s a country, not a city.” Christie’s prim response was almost amusing. Well, if it wasn’t for the importance of the topic at hand.

Hell, screw that, it was still funny as fuck.

“Do I look like I give a fuck about semantics?” Mundo growled.

Mars approached the door, and when he didn’t rear back at Christie being in a precarious position—legs spread or some shit that could trigger Mundo’s bear—Major joined him. She looked sweaty, tired, and uncomfortable, but relatively okay, if a little too pale for comfort.

“Sir, it really would be better if you watched your tongue. The staff—”

Mundo held up a hand. “My saying ‘fuck’ isn’t stopping you from doing your job. If you had a mate like mine, then you’d be saying ‘fuck’ a lot more too.”

“I take offense to that,” Christie immediately retorted.

“Oh, you do, huh?” Mundo snarled, stepping forward so he could loom over her. “You can take all the offense you want.”

She glowered up at him then surprised the hell out of them by jumping up, hooking her arms around Mundo’s neck, and kissing him. Literally, an eating-his-face-off kind of kiss.

As the doctor and his attendants gawked, Major and Mars looked at each other with wry grins. Then, under his breath, Mars murmured, “That’s a mate bond, buddy.” He clapped Major on the back and maneuvered him out of the room, leaving the ‘happy’ couple in privacy.

Despair tried and failed, then tried again to overcome him. On the brink of potentially losing their cub, all that mattered to Christie and Mundo was the connection. Their bond.

A shudder shivered down his spine. “I know what you’re saying.”

“And I know it hurts, but that ain’t why I’m saying it. You get me?”

Major nodded. Trying to dislodge the dagger that felt like it had been shoved in his rib cage, he let Mars hook an arm over his shoulder as he dragged him down to the waiting room where all his brothers had gathered to wait on news of Christie’s status.

When the door opened, revealing a motley crew and a barrage of noise, Major had to smile.

He might not have a mate, but he did have family. Thank the Goddess for that.