Mates: Prequel (Claws Clause 0)

“I saw her myself this morning, then rushed here to make sure you knew first thing. And, let me tell you, she's got too much color to be a ghost. She's got a pulse. A scent. She’s fucking alive.”

A warning grumble started deep in Maddox's chest. “Stop lying to me.”

Colt’s wolf demanded he obey the Alpha’s command. He was, though—he just needed to convince Maddox of that fact.

“You know I would never lie to you.”

“No. What I know is that my Angie is dead. Gone. Trying to convince me otherwise is an insult to her memory and to me. Now get the fuck out of here before I make you. And if you know what’s good for you, don’t come back.”

Colt bristled. Okay. Sure. He knew this wouldn’t be easy. It still stung that Maddox thought him capable of lying about this.

Trying hard to hold onto his temper, he stayed where he was. Until Maddox got it through his thick head—or Bennett returned to drag him out—Colt wasn’t going anywhere.

“It’s true,” he insisted. “First I scented her, then I saw her—”

Maddox’s growl raised in pitch.

“It’s the damn truth!”

His brother snapped his pathetic human teeth. “Don't make me tell you again.”

Colt sank down onto the stool opposite of his brother. Though he was careful not to make any eye contact that could be taken as a challenge, he wanted Maddox to see his earnestness. “Listen to me. I wouldn't have come all the way back here and fucked with you like this if I wasn't a hundred percent positive it was her.”

“She—”

“I can't explain it, I don't know what the hell is going on, but Evangeline is abso-fucking-lutely alive. You know I’m telling the truth. It’s your mate, Maddox. You can trust me on this.”

Colt poured as much sincerity into his words as he could. He didn't need to have a mate to understand that there were just some things you didn't screw around with.

The growl subsided at last. Colt dropped his gaze, waiting for Maddox to process the bombshell that just got dropped on him. When enough time had passed and his brother was still eerily silent, Colt peered up through the thick fringe of his eyelashes, watching him through the glass. Maddox had to believe him. He had to.

It took a couple of tense minutes full of heavy breathing and wild eyes for Maddox to finally digest what Colt had said. In the end he must have realized that Colt was probably the only one he could trust right now.

Maddox shook his head, the quiet broken up

by a keening whine that escaped from the broken man on the other side of the glass. Colt understood, his own wolf anxious to answer his Alpha’s mournful call.

Because if Colt wasn’t lying… he could see the struggle play out on Maddox’s weathered face.

“No… she… then that means—”

Colt exhaled roughly. “That your mate is out there. And she is. I swear it.”

He didn't expect it to sink in right away. Colt might be a heartless bastard when it came to the idea of mates, but the bond he shared with Maddox was just as sacred. He could feel his brother’s pain, and the blossoming hope that maybe the impossible had happened.

Three years was a long time to mourn and grieve; it wasn't easy to turn that off like a switch just because Colt had told him that Evangeline was miraculously still alive. But when he did understand, Colt expected Maddox to be anxious and happy and desperate to get back to his mate.

What he got instead was unbridled fury.

Available Now

Hungry like a Wolf

In a world where paranormals live side by side with humans, everybody knows about Ordinance 7304: the Bond Laws. Or, as the Paras snidely whisper to each other, the Claws Clause—a long and detailed set of laws that bonded couples must obey if they want their union to be recognized.

Because it wasn’t already damn near impossible to find a fated mate in the first place. Now the government just has to get involved…

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