Mates: Prequel (Claws Clause 0)

Was that all? She wanted to get some paper signed and have another human tell them they were mates? Fine. He could do that. It wouldn’t change anything in his mind—they were mates the first time he caught her scent—but if it made her happy, he’d do it.

“Fine. Then let’s go now.”

“What? Go where?”

“Get married. That’s what you want, right?”

She lifted her hand, pinching the bridge of her nose while shuttering her eyes. “Please, oh, please tell me that was not your way of proposing to me.”

Why not? “It makes sense to me. We get hitched like you want, get all the papers in order, then I can claim you. Shit, if we hurry, maybe we can hit the courthouse before they close. We can even go out for ice cream after.”

Evangeline gritted her teeth. That surprised him. He would’ve thought the mention of ice cream would’ve sealed the deal for him.

“No, Maddox. I will not marry you tonight. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I don’t get it. You just said—”

“I love you, Mad. I really do. But… I’m not ready to be married yet. I mean, I want to take this one step further. You want to move in together? Fine. Start sleeping together? I think I’m ready to handle that. But the rest of it? You’re the one who keeps saying it’s forever, right? Then what’s the harm in waiting to… to—”

“Let me bite you? Let me make you mine in all ways?”

Evangeline let out a soft breath. “Yes. Exactly. I’m so glad you understand. From everything I learned, it seems as if sometimes shifters… don’t.”

Maddox went still. Then, for the first time since she invited him close, he got up and willfully took a step away from her.

It was easy to tell himself he would wait for her forever, fooling himself that just knowing she was near was enough.

Until Evangeline refused to consider accepting his bite when they mated.

Until she said shifters like that.

He promised he would wait forever. She wasn’t being unreasonable. The rational man part of his brain knew that.

Tell that to his rejected wolf.

7

“Maddox.” Colt sighed, shaking his head. “This has got to fucking stop. Seriously.”

The big, brawny shifter was lying flat on his back in the middle of Colton’s living room. At least three empty bottles of Jameson Irish were sprawled around him.

Somewhere, filtering in from another room in the house, music played. Maddox remembered borrowing Colt’s phone and turning it on, creating an I can’t believe I screwed up this bad playlist, and promptly losing it. Kitchen? Probably. Though a wolf shifter never needed a reason to eat, guilt and stress caused him to snack even when he wasn’t actually hungry. He’d gone through half of the prepped meals his brother kept stored in the fridge, then drowned his sorrows in the whiskey he snuck in until he dropped.

A high-pitched croon. Maddox focused on that instead of the hulking shape of his obviously ticked off brother standing over him.

“Love lives, love dies…”

Ah. Def Leppard. Right now, this song was the soundtrack to his soul.

Maddox started to sing along.

“Love begs, love pleads…”

Colt nudged him in the shoulder with the tip of his work boot. “We’re not starting that shit again. Come on. Get up.”

“Go away,” he ordered.

There was a hint of a slur to his words. When Colt cursed under his breath before doing just what Maddox said, Mad wasn’t sure how to feel about that. As the stronger alpha wolf, sometimes his brother had no choice but to obey. Unless they were in a real fight—and that hadn’t happened since they were hormonal teens—Maddox tried not to pull rank on Colt.