Luke spat a low curse, glaring at his cell.
Sitting beside his brother on the rattan sofa, Tate frowned. “Something wrong?”
The Beta slid his phone into his pocket with a frustrated sigh. “Noelle’s being a pain in my ass.”
“In what way?” asked Tate.
“She wants me to give Blair more time. I said no. Noelle isn’t happy about it, and she doesn’t seem willing to drop it.”
Camden frowned, not recognizing either name.
Luke must have sensed his confusion, because he said, “You haven’t met Blair or Noelle. They’re part of a bush dog pack. Blair is my true mate, but I haven’t claimed her yet.”
Camden felt his brows inch up. He hadn’t known the Beta had found his true mate. It did explain why Luke never got involved with any of the females who came onto him. “Why not?”
“Although she’s now eighteen, I have to hold off on claiming her until she turns nineteen, which will be in six months,” said Luke. “It was an agreement I made with her parents when she was younger. They originally insisted that I hang on until she was twenty-one, but I refused to wait that long. Lately, her mother has been pushing me to wait at least another year.”
“What about Blair?” asked Deke. “What does she want?”
Luke took a long-ass swig from his bottle. “I told her years ago that if she ever decides she needs more time, I’ll give it to her. Unless or until she asks for it, it isn’t happening. As of yet, she hasn’t.”
Camden stretched his legs out in front of him. “So you’re in contact with her?”
Luke nodded. “I have been for years. I couldn’t have stayed away even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. Noelle hasn’t made it easy, though.”
“Because she doesn’t want her daughter to leave their pack, or because she doesn’t like that you’re a pallas cat?” Camden knocked back some of his beer. “Bush dogs generally mate with their own kind.”
“It does bother Noelle and some of her pack that I’m a different breed of shifter. But that’s their problem. Not mine, not Blair’s. I won’t let them make it hers.”
“Does she know Noelle is pushing you to wait another year?” asked Tate.
Luke shrugged. “Maybe. I haven’t told her. I don’t want to cause problems between mother and daughter.”
Deke slanted his head. “You’re not worried that Noelle might convince her to come round to her way of thinking?”
A smile tugged at Luke’s mouth. “No. My girl is strong. She has a will of her own. No one could force her to do anything she didn’t want to do—not even me.”
His mouth twitching, Tate nodded. “She might be a lot younger than you, but she doesn’t act it. She’s mature for her age. I suppose she’s had to be, considering she’s known for years that she’d become Beta female of a pallas cat pride pretty early in life—that would make a girl grow up fast. It was always a given that you would one day be Beta.”
“Yeah, she’s always known that.” Luke scrubbed a hand down his face. “Fuck, I hope she doesn’t ask me to wait longer to claim her. I will if she does, and I won’t complain. But it’s hard to hold back. Especially now that she’s eighteen. My cat is acting up because he’s pissed that I haven’t claimed her yet—in his eyes, she’s a mature female now and there’s no need to wait. I don’t even disagree, but I gave her parents my word. It’s as hard to be around her as it is to be away from her.”
“If you both know you’re mates and she’s sexually mature, I’m guessing the mating urge hit you at some point,” said Camden. The elemental force allegedly struck like a hammer, filling a person with such a carnal, pressing need that all they could think of was claiming their mate.
“It was blinding in its intensity over the first few days,” said Luke. “It was hard to think past it, to focus on anything other than claiming her, but then it levelled off. I’d known it would—nature isn’t going to keep someone in that state for too long or it could drive them to madness.”
Or even to do something drastic to escape it, like take their own life. “The urge has to still haunt you on some level, though.”
Luke nodded. “It’s still a pounding, unrelenting force that never eases for even a single second; still drives me to claim her with every breath I take. But I can think, function, stay in control. Which is good, because I wouldn’t otherwise be able to have any physical contact with her.”
“Must be hard to know she’s walking around unmarked,” Deke said to the Beta. “In your shoes, I’d hate that.”
Luke brought his bottle toward his mouth. “I didn’t say she was unmarked.”