No Way (Claws Clause 1.75)

“It’s usually a shifter thing. Their beasts go looking for a mate so they can have kids, everyone knows that. Vampires have a blood bond, too. Maybe there’s some others, I don’t know… witches don’t. Right?” When Kallista quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow high without saying a word, Shea felt her stomach go queasy. “Nana, right? Witches don’t have bonds.”

“Of course we do.”

Shea picked up on her grandmother’s meaning a second after she made her denial. “Well, yeah. I know. It’s like how all the witches in our family can communicate with each other. That’s not what I mean, though. We don’t have fated mates.”

“No,” Kallista said, drawing the word out as she looked down at her granddaughter. “But that never stopped us from being someone’s mate.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I’m not. It would explain your symptoms, and how neither your healing skills or my magic could fix what’s going on inside of you. From what I understand, when there’s a bond, mates can experience each other’s pain. An incomplete bond, however… if your mate—”

Shea finally shook off her shock long enough to say in bafflement, “I don’t have a mate.”

“No? Luciana tells me he would be a shifter. No beastly male has been sniffing around you lately?”

A handsome face, so pretty, so perfect, popped into her head.

Beastly male, huh?

Colton Wolfe.

Wolfe.

Like she teasingly said during that disastrous delivery, it was right in his name—and after the way Luciana reminded her about him, the only man that she could think of.

But it couldn’t be him. Mr. Wolfe had all but snarled at her the single time they met, something close to disappointment mixed with loathing flaring to life on his incredible face after his accident.

Her luck was crap. Always had been.

A mate who hated her? Of course.

And that was still reaching.

Sure, when she first caught sight of him when he came to deliver the dresser, she was almost shell-shocked by how gorgeous he was. She could’ve sworn she saw stars, felt sparks, all that cliche crap—and then he went and dropped the dresser on his ankle.

He had looked at her like his clumsiness was her fault, and then he was absolutely offended when she offered to heal him. He’d hauled tail right out of her shop after that and, if she could’ve sworn she saw him driving his van past her shop once or twice, Shea had convinced herself that that was wishful thinking.

Because, she reasoned at that moment, if she really was his mate, why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he come back?

Didn’t he want her?

Eh. Probably not.

She was Shea Moonshadow, the broken witch. No one ever did.

She must have given her thoughts, her feelings… her absolute disbelief... away with her expression. Always a bad bet when it came to poker, she realized too late that her grandmother had read every thought as it flittered through her mind and flashed across her face.

Her grandmother’s voice gentled. “Exactly, Shea. And, whether you know it or not, you must be this poor man’s mate. There’s a bond, a weak one certainly, but an incomplete one all the same. It’s stretched too thin between the two of you. He must have been hurt recently. His regenerative properties would be affected by the strain of the bond. And you, my darling… consider these sympathy pains.”

“Sympathy pains,” echoed Shea. This was just so… so unbelievable. “Ah, come on, Nana. You expect me to believe that I’m hurting because some man I barely know is my mate—and he’s the one who really got hurt? And, if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t have any idea that there’s some kind of bond between us? Really?”

“That’s exactly what I expect.” Her grandmother shook her head royally. Her black curls, so like Shea’s except for the streaks of white threaded throughout, danced around her lined face before settling down the back of her expensively tailored blazer. Like Luciana, Kallista still wore the working witch’s uniform of pantsuit and heels that always made Shea’s ankles give; unlike Luciana, her grandmother chose to show her age instead of hiding it behind a veil of glamour. “Now what are you going to do about it?”

“Me?” Shea blinked. “Why do I have to do anything about it? I don’t know that man. Not really. Besides, it’s only been a couple of days. I’ll heal. I always do.”

“That’s the thing about shifters,” Kallista offered. “They usually do, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”