by E A Price
“Ummm, Bettina has this insane idea that you love me or something, and you ate something that made you forget me… ummm…”
He didn’t seem surprised by this in the least. Didn’t burst out laughing like she was expecting.
“You’re my mate.”
“I… I am?”
“Definitely.”
Her penguin flapped her wings in elation, but surely that couldn’t be true. “But we’ve known each other for a month! How come you never said anything before?”
He frowned. “No, we just met today. I saw you, my polar bear recognized you, and then,” a predatory smile crossed over his face, “we had that fun chase.”
Crystal blinked at him. “I’m kind of wondering what that blueberry muffin did to you – this isn’t the normal you. You definitely didn’t behave this way when we first met.”
He growled softly, and his muscles trembled. His big polar bear wanted out. “We only met today.”
“No, we met a month ago, and we’ve spoken almost every day since. Every day you ask me to come up to your office, plus we keep running into each other at the deli, and the grocery store and the fish market… that one time at the hair salon…”
She eyed his neatly buzzed hair. She did seem to run into him a lot. Yeah, she was stalking him, but all of those meetings hadn’t been of her design. Surely, he hadn’t been trying to see her, had he?
What, no, that’s crazy. Yet, the seven-foot naked man before her, claiming to be her mate, didn’t look like he was joking.
“Umm, I have to talk to Bettina.”
Arik started growling and pulling at the bars of his cell. She slipped out of the room, passing Moose, aware of the mounting frustration of the giant polar bear behind her.
“All yours, buddy.”
*
Cutter shrugged. He still didn’t believe them. Despite everyone telling them otherwise, he still didn’t believe that Lucie was his mate.
Her hedgehog whined pitifully.
He stomped out of the room, and reassured that Trina was occupying Rosie, Lucie bustled after him.
“Is it so hard to believe?” she demanded to his retreating back. “Is it really so hard for you to believe that you’re my mate and we have a baby?”
He stopped, his shoulders rigid with tension. “Yes.”
Pain lanced through her chest. Lucie gasped. “You really don’t think I’m good enough for you?”
He turned and shot her a furious look. “That’s not it.”
“Oh really?” Her voice trembled and she didn’t care.
“Yes, really,” he growled. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you better than anyone else on the planet, mister. I know you have a beautiful son called Dean who you absolutely adore. I know that you sing Queen songs to get Rosie to sleep. I know that even though you love spring rolls, you always let me have the last one – no matter how much you want it. I know that even though you absolutely hate the smell of them, you buy me flowers because you know I love them. I know that secretly you love Sandra Bullock movies…”
A couple of guys from tactical passed by and sniggered.
Cutter grimaced. “Yeah, tell everybody why don’t you?”
Lucie ignored him. “I know that you’re angry all the time, but even though you are, I know you’d never hurt me or Rosie, no matter what.”
Cutter trembled. “You don’t know that for certain.”
Lucie softened and took a hesitant step towards him. “Yes, I do. Because I know you.” She placed a hand on his arm. “A part of you thinks I’m too good for you, but that’s absolutely fudging rubbish.”
His lips quirked at fudging.
“You know what else I know? I’m yours, and you’re mine, and whether you think I should be with someone else, you know deep down you wouldn’t be able to let me go.”
Cutter shook his head. “My wolf… he wants you. I just… I just don’t remember.”
“I know, honey.”
She placed her hands on his chest and blew out a breath. “We have the worst luck on Valentine’s. You don’t remember, but one time, I was infected by this weird dust that made me lust after Wayne and…”
“Wayne?” His eyes narrowed, and he let out a familiar growl. This was much more like it.
“Yeah,” she giggled softly. “He still won’t talk to me unless you’re with me. I think he’s scared of what you’ll do to him.”
Carefully, he put his hands on her hips. Oh yes, this was definitely much more like it.
“How did you get over that?”
Lucie flushed. “True love’s kiss.”
His eyes flickered to amber. “I kissed you?”
Lucie nodded.
“Perhaps…”
Lucie jumped into his arms, pressing her lips to his. He was surprised at first, but he quickly got with the program. His arms wrapped around her and his tepid kiss turned molten, and passion and love exploded through her bond. She felt happy tears pour down her cheeks.
“You’re back!” she cried.
Cutter rubbed his chin over her shoulder, scenting her and putting his scent all over her.
“I’m back,” he breathed.
“Peanut butter and jelly, I am so glad!”
Remorse and guilt tried to creep through her bond. “Sweetheart, I…”
“Nope, no apologies – this wasn’t your fault, at all. I’m just glad you remember me.”
“So am I.”
He planted kisses over her face before snarling gently.
“I also remember why I want to kill Wayne. I thought it was weird how angry he made me.”
Lucie giggled. “You really should let that go, it wasn’t his fault I was under a spell and tried to seduce him.”
“Humph.”
Oh, there he was – that was her guy. Unreasonable and absolutely devoted.
“Let’s get Rosie and go home,” she suggested softly. She needed to spend the rest of the day wrapped around her mate.
“Frak yes, but, just one thing first.”
He pulled a small case out of his pocket. “Now I know why I’ve been carrying these around all day.”
“What’s this?” she murmured as he handed it to her. She gasped as she opened it to find a pair of pearl earrings.
“If you don’t like them you can take them back. The saleswoman said they were classy – I don’t know, thought they looked nice.”
“James…”
“Thought you’d like them for Valentine’s,” he told her roughly.
She stared at him, and he grunted.
“I thought you forgot.”
He grimaced. “I lied. I got these weeks ago, wanted to surprise you.”
“They’re beautiful. I love them. I’m so surprised!” She kissed him while admiring her new earrings. “And here I thought I knew you inside and out…”
Cutter smiled. “You do, sweetheart. I think you know me better than I know myself.”
She beamed.
“C’mon, I think I deserve a personal day. Let’s go get our angel and go home.”
Her little beastie purred. “Happy Valentine’s, mate.”
“Happy Valentine’s, sweetheart.”
*
Arik glowered at Wayne and Moose as they led him to his car. “I don’t see why I need to go home. I feel fine.”
Better than fine. His polar bear yowled impatiently. He had a mate to claim. Rawr.
“Trust me, it’s for your own good,” said Wayne. “Director Sanders says that all the repairs are coming out of your paycheck, and considering what you did to the canteen, that is going to be one heck of a bill. You should go home before you need to declare bankruptcy.”
“But maybe I should drive your car,” suggested Moose. “Given that you’re not quite yourself.”
“Nice try,” snorted Arik, “But nobody…”
He frowned at the dent in the side of the car. How did that get there? Something tingled in the back of his mind. He peered inside
the car at the passenger seat. There was a huge brown stain on the seat. It was hot chocolate. Someone spilled hot chocolate. Not just anyone…
Something clicked in his mind, and he smiled.
*
Kurt dragged his feet along the street. He thought a walk might help, but it didn’t. He was straining to remember Sydney, but he couldn’t. Damn magic. She wasn’t a forgettable kind of girl. From her cute noise to those huge eyes and those wild curly locks…
He frowned as he recognized the five huge males striding towards him. That was Bill and his four sons – all rhino shifters. He knew them, knew who they were, but he couldn’t remember how he knew them. Which was strange. How had he met them…
“Kurt!” rumbled Bill, a furious expression on his face.
Even his magic couldn’t have stopped the fist coming for his face.
*
“Ugh.”
Crystal pulled the remnants of her sandwich out of her drawer. It had gone everywhere and was already starting to stink. She pulled out a piece of limp lettuce and tossed it in the trash. Then watched as Ed proceeded to pull it out of the trash and put it in his mouth.
“Ugh. Lovely.”
Her penguin was sulking. She didn’t know why they weren’t trying to climb Arik like a tree at that very moment. She had been stalking him for over a month, mooning over him like crazy, and now that he wanted her, what was she doing? Cleaning the gross sandwich out of her drawer.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be with him – she definitely did. She just wasn’t sure what to make of this new Arik. Why wouldn’t he want to claim her when they met a month ago? Bettina didn’t know what to tell her. The muffins were supposed to make him forget the person he was in love with – but Bettina couldn’t rule out any strange side effects.
Her penguin perked up a moment before Arik – still naked – ran into the room.
“Oh no,” she breathed dropping a hunk of ham onto her shoe.
“Crystal…”
She started edging towards Ed, trying to put the zombie between them. Ed just continued munching the lettuce.
Arik smiled smugly. “Mate,” he crooned.
“Uh…”
“I remember everything.”
Crystal wrinkled her nose. “But if you remember everything, then why do you still think I’m your mate?”
“Because you are,” he said simply.
Her penguin cried out in joy.
“But… but, we’ve known each other for weeks and you never said a word!”
Arik slowly started stalking towards her, a maddening smile on his face. She kept Ed between them.
“Baby, I was going through a divorce and didn’t want you to be involved. We were divorcing because of a mutual decision, but my ex-wife’s clan wanted an excuse to make the divorce contentious. If I’d been involved with another woman, they would have taken all my clan’s money and tried to sue you as well.”
Ed wandered away to search the trash. He pulled out a slice of tomato with teeth marks and started munching on it. Crystal gulped as she realized there was nothing protecting her from the giant polar bear shifter.
“I wanted to wait until it was over,” he cooed, “and now it is.”
Perfect explanation cooed her traitorous bird. Crystal was still a little reticent. Yes, she was obsessed with the guy, but she never really expected that he would be hers. Though it certainly explained her reaction to him.
“You didn’t say a word,” she murmured, slowly moving backward, putting a desk between them.
“My bear went crazy the first time he recognized you.”
“Your first day of work?”
She racked her brain trying to remember what he had been like. He had seemed perfectly calm and collected, and she knew what crazy looked like. She’d met Cutter.
Arik let out a low, guttural laugh and made her sex twitter in expectation. “No, when you were pawing through the garbage at my sister’s house.”
“I was not pawing through the garbage!” she denied hotly. “I just knocked it over when a raccoon attacked me!”
“Right.”
He made a lunge to grab her and Crystal danced away. Her face flushed as she realized she was enjoying this as much as he was. She’d been startled earlier, but yeah, she kind of liked being chased by a sexy beast.
“I did,” she insisted primly. “I just happened to be walking past your house…”
He raised an eyebrow. Yeah, no one would believe that. Guess she wasn’t as subtle as she thought.
“Anyway, my bear saw you, scented you and it took my sister, her mate, and her mate’s two brothers to hold me back and talk some sense into me. I wanted you, but if I’d gone after you, my ex’s clan would have ruined my family and your life.
“So, after about eight hours of being locked in my sister’s basement, I kind of started to see sense. Course, it helped that I got your license plate. I was planning on tracking you down, but, luck was on my side. All I had to do was call, and you’d walk right into my office…”
He feinted left, and she dodged right – right into his waiting arms.
“Ooh!” she gasped.
Arik pressed his cheek against her head, inhaling her scent and letting out a monumental groan.
“I’ve been dropping hints every day for a month,” he murmured against her hair.
“You have?” she whimpered.
Thoughts didn’t exactly come easily when cocooned in a giant polar bear’s arms. Her penguin had already swooned and was down for the count.
She tried to think about what they’d talked about whenever they ran into one another. Okay, yeah, he did keep talking about the importance of waiting for a true mate, but she had thought he was just being a smug married dick.
“Oh!”
She could feel the cocky grin spreading across his cheeks as realization dawned. “I knew you were mine. Knew you were coming by my place every night.”
“You did?” she gasped.
Arik threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. Crystal pouted a little. It wasn’t that funny.
“Of course I knew – baby, you’re not stealthy. Just figured that was your way of getting close to me. You doing that and me stalking you was about the only way my beast could handle being apart. Why do you think I turned up at your yoga class? Do I look like the kind of guy who does yoga?”
His eyes flicked up and down his toned body, and instinctively her own eyes followed suit. She squeaked on seeing his engorged sex. He sniggered, and she blushed in pleasure. As for the yoga thing, yeah he kind of did look like he went to yoga regularly, but that wasn’t the point.
“So when you were trying to chase me around the building…”
“That was my bear – he thought he was seeing you for the first time. He would have done that over a month ago if my sister hadn’t stopped me.”
Her heart bubbled hopefully. “Really?”
“Yeah. Baby, you are mine.”
Crystal beamed. All those nights spent mooning over him, hiding behind his trash and generally acting like a loon, oh, they were all worth it!
“No, you’re mine!” she cried and leaped into his waiting arms.
As they kissed, even Ed trying to eat his way through a deconstructed trash sandwich couldn't dampen her mood. Nope, everything was perfect.
*
“Ooh, your poor eye,” cooed Sydney as she pressed an ice pack to Kurt’s head.
“It’s fine,” he murmured with a lopsided grin.
He ran a hand up her thigh and let out a long, contented breath. Yep, her guy was back. She knew it when she opened her apartment door, and he pulled her into a toe-curling kiss. She was dazed for a good five minutes before she noticed the blossoming black eye.
“I’m so sorry my dad hit you. I will have to talk to him…” she said doubtfully.
Her dad didn’t tend to listen. Her mom usually had to distract him with kissing or cake, or kissing and cake whenever they had to tell him anyth
ing he didn’t want to hear. It took a three-tier red velvet cake and more than an hour of smooching when her mom told him Sydney was moving out of the family home.
Kurt took the ice pack away from her and pulled her into his arms. “Are you kidding, it worked – I remember you thanks to this punch.”
Sydney snorted. “Yeah, my dad’s thrilled he knocked some sense into you.”
After Sydney called everyone to say the crisis was over, her dad boasted for ten minutes about how he saved the day.
“That’s not really what happened.”
“No?”
“Your dad and your brothers wanted to punch me because they love you so much – because you’re special to them. They’re right; you are special. What they did reminded me of that. Reminded me that you’re worth fighting for, reminded me of how special you are to me, too.”
“Oh,” she murmured and then blushed. “Thank you.”
Her lips found his, and he only winced a little as they kissed.
“So the wedding’s back on, right?”
Sydney pressed her lips together to stop herself from laughing. “Are you kidding? According to your mom, it was never off.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow. “She knew what was going on, surely she…”
She snickered. “She said she didn’t have time to rearrange her appointments to fit in with your mini-crisis and that you’d soon snap out of it.”
He rubbed his forehead, letting out a sound halfway between amusement and exasperation. “Guess she had faith I’d remember you.”
“Yeah, I guess she did.”
He gave her a serious look. “You know, the wedding is kind of driving us crazy, it’s not too late to elope.”
“I actually want the big wedding,” Sydney admitted.
“You do?”
“Yeah. Weddings are about families, not just the bride and groom, and it’s making your mom and, even though he doesn’t admit it, my dad happy. My mom told me he’d already started practicing walking me down the aisle.”
She had to admit hearing that pleased her immensely. She worried her dad didn’t like Kurt, but on finding that out, she was thrilled.
“What about your mom?”
“She’s always happy – how do you think she manages to live with my dad?”
Kurt snickered. “But what about my mom’s more extravagant ideas?”
