Echoes of Fire (The Mercury Pack #4)(14)
“Either they somehow managed to escape your detection, or they found out her address some other way,” said Ally.
“Madisyn gave us their first names,” Derren told Bracken. “We’ll work on finding out what clan they might be from. She’s promised to contact us if she thinks of anything else that will help us ID them. We will find them, and we will make them pay.”
Bracken nodded. Pissed though he was, he wasn’t raging and raring to hunt the bitches. All he wanted was time alone with Madisyn. So when his pack mates later filed out of the house, Bracken lingered, assuring them he wouldn’t be long. They looked confused but left without commenting.
Alone with Madisyn, who was now washing cups in the sink, he propped his hip against the counter and watched her. Absorbed her. Relished the knowledge that he’d found the female who was born for him. The female who belonged to him in a way that she could never belong to anyone else. She was just plain his. And she was currently doing her best to pretend she was alone. He couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or amused.
“I know you felt it,” he said. “The bond. It was there.”
She flicked him a sideways glance. “I felt something.”
Anger flared inside him at the flippant response. “You felt the tug of a mating bond, Madisyn. Don’t you fucking deny it.”
Sighing, Madisyn turned to fully face him. She’d been shocked as all shit when she felt the mating bond pulling at her. Although she’d wanted him from day one, there’d been no mutual electric snap of attraction back then. No sense that he seemed in any way drawn to her. In fact, she’d often gotten the feeling that she annoyed him a little . . . which she could admit she’d found kind of fun.
The now-hardened enforcer had once been flirty by nature but never with her. Although he’d made her come with his fingers earlier, it hadn’t been because he was truly attracted to her. What was it he’d said? “You need me right now.” Not that he needed her. Not that he even wanted her. Nope. He’d just been helping her relieve the touch-hunger. And then he’d damn well gotten knocked over. But without permission from Dawn, the cougar shifter who ran the shelter, she wasn’t able to share everything she knew about the sows.
“I won’t deny that I felt the bond,” said Madisyn. “But it makes no sense that we’re mates. None.”
“Because we didn’t instantly fall at each other’s feet? It doesn’t always happen like that. People can know their true mate for years and not sense it.”
“Yeah, but they probably liked each other. Probably felt an itty-bitty hint of attraction. Us . . . there was nothing.”
“That’s a lie,” accused Bracken. “You wanted me. I wanted you, though I didn’t properly acknowledge it. There was sexual chemistry there, baby. It exploded between us in your fucking hallway.” He took a step closer, taking in her pale face and wide eyes. It made his chest tighten. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you spooked by anything before.”
“Well, it was a shock. We’ve known each other awhile, but I never once suspected that we could be mates.” Her cat hadn’t behaved in a way that hinted at it . . . though, to be fair, the mere fact that her cat found him tolerable said a lot. The feline had panicked when he blacked out, and very little caused her cat to panic. But even as she knew he was her mate, the feline wasn’t straining toward him. She felt he had some work to do. But that was how it was with dominant pallas females; they needed their mates to prove themselves worthy before they gave up their solitary ways.
“You never showed any interest in me until now,” Madisyn went on. “That makes me think that it’s not me you want. Not really. You want your mate, which isn’t the same thing.”
Bracken narrowed his eyes. “You think I want the bond more than I want you. That’s bullshit, Madisyn.”
“Oh yeah? Look me in the eye and tell me you would ever want a relationship with me if you hadn’t felt the tug of the bond,” she challenged. “You can’t, can you? I’ve never been on your radar. And that’s okay—a lot of people have types. I’m not yours. Simple. Sometimes it works like that with mates, which is why the mating urge is so sexually overpowering; it ensures two people who wouldn’t otherwise be together are forced to claim each other.”
He tilted his head. “You sound like you have some personal knowledge of this.”
“My father never showed any interest in my mother until he felt the bond—they were both grieving the death of a friend, and it lowered their walls, I guess. But if it hadn’t been for the mating urge, they’d never have gotten together, because Guy would never have looked at Cherrie that way. And that knowledge sat between them all their lives, eating away at what they had. Eating at them. I won’t live like that. I won’t bind myself to someone who’s only looking my way because fate paired us. That’s not enough to make a mating work.”
“You’re right, it’s not. But you’re not right in thinking that I don’t like or feel any attraction toward you. As for your belief that I didn’t want you before now, surely the fact that I finger-fucked you in your hallway disproves that.”
“You only did that because I was in a bad state with the touch-hunger.” It damn well hurt her pride that her own mate had only made her come as a freaking favor. “Don’t bullshit me, Bracken. You know I’m right.”