his human half thought, stunned. He knew the two ideas were the same.
He’d never, ever imagined that his mate could be someone he already admired, someone whose work he’d been drawn to for years, someone who—
—looked understandably weirded out by the fact that he was standing there staring at her silently.
He tried to push his wolf’s howl aside, ignoring how it felt like it was deafening him from the inside out.
She was his mate—undeniably, eternally, impossibly, incredibly—but she was also a scared woman who was already having a hell of a day, and he had to focus on what all this must feel like to her.
She didn’t need him breaking out in a flood of primal instincts just because that was what his wolf seemed to be demanding.
He had to put her first. And—
Colby sniffed, hoping the gesture was small enough to be imperceptible.
There was a distinctly wolfish scent on Aria Clarke, a spicy smell of wildness and damp fur.
It was strange, though—if that was her scent, he wasn’t nearly as drawn to it as he should have been. Instead, the smell was making his wolf pace around inside his head, snapping and snarling at nothing, something the mutt usually only got up to under the worst of circumstances.
Had her eyes widened when they’d met his? A little, maybe. It was hard to tell. If she was a shifter, she’d have recognized him in the same instant he’d recognized her...
Colby tried to shake off his confusion. Maybe Aria Clarke was a werewolf and maybe she wasn’t, but that didn’t change the fact that he had to get his act together right now.
He hoped this moment had been a lot shorter in reality than it had felt inside his head.
The fact that no one was calling 911 about him suddenly going into a fugue state was comforting, at least.
Colby grabbed at every bit of charm he could and pulled himself together. He smiled.
“Hi. I’m Colby. Deputy US Marshal Colby. Acton.”
Yeah, that had gone about as well as expected.
He could still save this. He reached out for a handshake.
...That was the hand that was holding the Slinky.
“This is a Slinky,” Colby said.
The corner of Aria’s mouth twitched. “I think I recognize it from pictures.”
Mattie chirped up to rescue him: “Mom, Marshal Colby gave me a Rubik’s Cube!”
You are my favorite kid ever, Colby thought fervently.
“The Slinky was another option,” he said, relieved to remember that he’d had a reason for bringing the damn thing in the first place. “I wasn’t sure what she’d like, but I figured any kid would be bored being cooped up like this. Especially in here.”
He gestured at the aggressively taupe walls and the menacing posters warning people to lock their cars, protect their passwords, and wash their hands. (The last one didn’t seem to fit, and it worried him that someone had considered it necessary.) He felt the irrational need to volunteer the information that his own office had way better décor and that he also always washed his hands.
Aria Clarke’s gaze flitted around the room. “Good point. I’ve been bored too, actually.” She sounded a little surprised that the boredom had overcome the fear.
“Well,” Colby said, “I can offer you a Slinky, if you want one.”
She had a great laugh, beautiful and warm, and he was impressed that she could laugh at all under the circumstances. “I might take you up on that.”
She leaned against the table, studying him with lively, dark brown eyes. As she did, the humor faded out of her expression. Now she looked more wary than anything else.
Why?