Chapter 45 — Rainn

I wake up feeling like everything is all right with the world. Beside me, Bree is still asleep. Her soft breaths and the gentle movement of her body are a reminder of everything that happened before we slept.

Above the covers, her shoulder is bare. Unable to resist, I lean down and kiss the exposed skin. She moves, turning to me and opening drowsy eyes as she smiles at me. I see my face in her thoughts, clearer than I’ve ever seen anyone’s thoughts. She’s thinking of me with a sensation of intense love. The only thing that compares is the way I feel about her.

Her thoughts.

Realization hits me the same moment it hits her. She bolts upright, eyes wide, clutching the covers to her chest.

“It’s not my imagination,” she says wonderingly. “I can really read your thoughts.”

“I’m sensing your thoughts,” I say at the same time.

“It’s not possible,” I say after a pause. “I mean…it shouldn’t be. You’re not a member of my pack…yet.”

She raises one eyebrow at the ‘yet,’ then rolls her eyes when I just shrug and grin. I want her to join my pack. I won’t pretend that I won’t do anything I can to make it happen.

“I thought…I thought I was imagining it,” she whispers. “All that time, it’s always been there, but now it’s so clear.” She looks puzzled. “It’s clearer than even Derek and I used to communicate before I left the pack.”

At the mention of Derek, my mood sours. “I think the others are already here,” I say, getting up from the bed. “Let’s go down. We can ask my dad what it means.”

“You think it’s because we…” She bites her bottom lip, and her face goes red. Her embarrassment is so cute. I want to pull her back under the covers with me and let the others wait.

“You mean because we made love?”

Her face reddens even more, but she lifts her chin. “Yes.”

I shake my head. “Shifters don’t start communicating any time they have sex with someone from another pack,” I tell her. “Not to my knowledge, anyway. This is something else.”

She nods, and I can sense her wondering how many wolves from the other packs I’ve been with. How many wolves from my pack? As soon as she notices I can read the thoughts, she closes her mind in a swift motion, like shutting a book.

“No one else matters,” I say out loud, and I mean it.

“Of course.” Now she looks even more embarrassed. “I don’t even know why I was thinking about it.”

We take turns in the ensuite bathroom, showering and getting dressed. Bree’s tiny frame practically disappears in one of my t-shirts and sweatpants, but I think she looks perfect as I follow her down the stairs.

In the kitchen, there’s already a meeting going on. Eli, Caleb and Rebecca are talking with my dad, and Emily-Rose has just arrived with Derek.

“Hey!” Bree goes to greet her friends. “You guys came.”

“I said I would come,” Derek replies, giving me one of his morose glares before turning back to Bree.

“He stayed with me…I mean, at our dorm, your bed…” Emily-Rose’s stammer turns into a mortified blush. “I mean…he slept in our room.”

Bree is nodding. “I guess that makes sense,” she says. “He can stay as long as he wants.”

Emily-Rose just smiles. Bree can’t see the tension between her two best friends, but I can. I still don’t trust Derek, but I can bet he has met his match with Bree’s roommate.

“Well, I’m glad you both have joined us,” my dad says, looking from Bree to me.

“We went running after…at dawn,” Bree explains.

My dad nods and studies his coffee cup as if it holds the secrets of the universe. “Of course.”

“He already knows,” I mutter. The walls aren’t thin, but I guess we weren’t as quiet as we should have been. I ignore all the knowing glances and focus on my dad. “Why can Bree and I sense each other thoughts?”

My dad’s eyes shoot up to meet mine. “Sense?”

“Read. Clearly. Like we belong to the same pack, but even clearer.”

My dad’s eyebrows go up. “Well, it confirms that you did more than run, for one.”

Eli and Rebecca guffaw and elbow each other like little kids. Even Caleb looks amused. As if we don’t have more serious things to be considering than my sex life.

“What does that mean?” I ask, getting impatient.

“Wolf-shifters nowadays find their mates like most humans do, by getting to know each other, exploring mutual attraction, and so on.”

“But?”

“In some rare cases, it still happens the way it used to happen before the modern ways. Sometimes, the wolves choose each other. When that happens, you’re moonstruck. Moonstruck mates can always sense each other’s thoughts,” he continues. “Even if they don’t belong to the same pack. At first, it’s very subtle, but the more time they spend around each other, the clearer it gets.” He pauses. “Intimacy, or running at dawn, as Bree elegantly described it, erases all the barriers finally.”

“Mates?” Derek’s voice is both outraged and skeptical.

I ignore him.

“As a father,” my dad is still talking. “I’m just going to say I hope you were careful and responsible.”

I can barely hear him. I’m looking at Bree, reading the confusion on her face.

Our wolves chose each other.

It explains a lot. It explains the connection I always had with her, the fact that I always knew, in a way that defied logic, that she meant something to me.

Moonstruck.

Mates.

“Bree.” I reach for her with my mind, wanting to know that she’s okay with this.

She closes herself to me. “I can’t…I don’t…” Her voice is shaky. She looks around the room. “I need some time to process this.” She pauses. “But not now. Right now, we have stuff to do, and things to plan.”

“You’re right,” I agree, trying not to let my disappointment show. “Caleb, you’ve called the rest of the pack?”

He nods.

“Then let’s go meet them.”