Love at First Mate - Badlands Territory

“Yeah, me too. They were great parents. Great mates as well. Like you, my mother wasn’t a shifter, but she grew up in the Badlands, so she and my father knew they were mates from when they were young. But, my dad had a temper. Got in too many fights for his own good. Mom was the only one that could calm him in those moments. He was jealous as fuck too.”

“Like you.” I smile and he nods, the tension in his brow easing a bit as I run a hand through his damp hair.

“Shouldn’t have happened. Mom was at Josephine’s, it was called something else back then but that doesn’t’ matter, waiting for my dad to meet her for lunch. She got up to use the lady’s room, and there was a table of asshole lion shifters from the other side of the mountain that had been in there drinking. One of them grabbed my mom’s wrist as she went by, then when she jerked her arm back, he smacked her on the ass and took a good handful to top it off.”

“That wasn’t smart.”

“No. Bad timing too, because my dad had just walked in the door of the bar and saw what happened. It was three against one, but the odds never deterred my father when he saw red. It happened so fast. He was rage-blind in a second, seeing someone treat his mate like that. They all shifted, including my father, and it was chaos. Claws and teeth. They jumped on him and he threw one across the bar so hard he impaled him on a mounted deer’s antlers hanging on the wall.”

Ragnar pauses, his eyes drop, and he takes a long breath. Then he lifts his eyes to look at the fireplace mantel where there are framed photos of him, his gran, his parents and other people I don’t know.

“Anyway.” He smacks his tongue against his front teeth. “Mom jumped in the middle, trying to break it up, trying to calm him before he killed them all. He didn’t see her, she caught a swipe of his paw across her mid-section. Tore her open. She lost too much blood. He left the hospital and disappeared.” Ragnar is silent for a moment, then finishes. “He’d gone over the mountain to finish things with the lions, only when he got there, it wasn’t just the two lion shifters that he found. It was their whole family. Sixteen in all. Even shifter healing couldn’t save him and even if it could, I’m not sure that’s what he wanted. I know he loved me, but living without my mother…” He releases a long, hard breath. “Anyway.”

“Is this what Josephine wanted you to tell me? I heard her say that you needed to tell me something…”

“Yeah. And...” His voice hardens, and he brings a hand up to grip my face, forcing my eyes to his, his warm breath on my lips as his eyes narrow. “Do not ever jump into a fight between shifters again. Got it? I’m all in with you, with us. But if anything happened to you.” He grits his teeth, his jaw popping. “Let’s just not let history repeat itself, okay? I’m scared as fuck to lose you, Wynter. But I’m here. I’m pushing through the fear because you are worth it. We are worth it.”

“And I’m here too.” I rub my hips down on him, but to my surprise he simply groans without taking things any farther. “Something wrong?”

Usually all I have to do is think a sexy thought and he’s got me breathless from twelve orgasms—and I’m either full of, or covered with, his cum.

“No.” He clears his throat as I hear the sound of a car coming up the gravel drive. “Just... just stay here, okay? Do as you’re told.” He points a finger at my nose, half kidding, but half serious, so I give him a quick salute as he picks me up and sets me on the sofa next to him, then he’s on his feet heading out the door.

The suspense is killing me, especially since I sort of killed a guy earlier today and Ragnar killed the other two, and that could mean a visit from some law enforcement. I work my way to the front door and push up on my tiptoes to look through the little window outside.

When I see who Ragnar is talking to, worry tightens my throat.

Robert.

He’s human and he’s the one that called the sheriff. He tried to help me when he came to the shop, but maybe he’s here for some blackmail thing, or—

I hop back to the couch as Ragnar turns back to come in the front door and I hear a car pulling back down the driveway.

I sit cross-legged on my hands, trying to look innocent, but when Ragnar comes through the door, looks at me and growls, I look down and see the big t-shirt I’m wearing up around my hips, exposing my bare pussy.