Page 43 of An Unending Claim
“Like what?” My voice was breathless and I just barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes.
My panther was practically salivating over my thoughts, and while I wanted to blame her for my reaction, I had to take responsibility. I was the one mentally drooling over my mate’s sexy body, and now that there was nothing clouding my mind, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t.
“To be honest, they aren’t even fully formed in my mind yet. Let me work them out, then we’ll go over them together.”
The way he automatically included me ignited a warm glow inside me that felt… I wasn’t sure. I didn’t recognize it, which made me wonder if it was something to do with love. However, opening up to him hadn’t been easy and I was still feeling a little raw from it. I wasn’t ready to dive into anything related to love. Although, I couldn’t help contemplating what it would be like to love and be loved by Nathan.
“Okay.” I slipped to his side and rested my head on his chest, one leg thrown over his. “What do we do now?”
His hand ran down my hair, then rubbed slow, soothing circles on my back. “That depends on where you want to go from here. If we are going to move forward in our relationship, then progressing to the third stage of mating is the next step.”
It had been a long, emotional day and I didn’t have the clarity of mind or energy to dive into a talk about our relationship. Although I was curious. “How does that work?”
Nathan didn’t seem surprised by my question, but thoughtful instead. “Sometimes, I forget how removed you were from shifter culture.”
“It wasn’t necessarily that I was removed from it,” I corrected as I scrolled through my experiences—which were clear as day thanks to my eidetic memory. “It’s that my interactions were spread out through different species of shifters. I will admit that even those were very limited, though.”
“Well,” Nathan said in a low, gruff voice before he bent his head and kissed a sensitive spot on my neck, “let me enlighten you about how our mating works.” He licked a path up and along my jaw, stopping to whisper in my ear. “I might even be persuaded into giving you a demonstration.”
I snorted, ignoring the butterflies swirling in my stomach and the throbbing between my legs. “That’s mighty big of you.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I groaned at the obvious pun.
Nathan chuckled and grunted, “Baby, I don’t think I need to point out how well acquainted you are with the truth of that statement.”
Yeah, there wasn’t a part of Nathan that wouldn’t be classified as big. I didn’t call him a giant just to sass him–it wasn’t far off. I cleared my throat and ignored the blatant proof of his size growing and hardening under my ass.
“Stop distracting me,” I mumbled, giving his shoulder a little push to make him stop driving me crazy with his lips. “Tell me about the process.”
He sighed into my neck, but with one final kiss, he raised his head and met my gaze. “It’s similar to the second stage. A claiming bite. Except in this case, we both bite and it’s simultaneous. Our mental connection will deepen, giving us more emotional awareness of each other, a limited ability to actually communicate mentally, and…” He trailed off and grinned wolfishly.
I raised an eyebrow and fought to remain still when a shiver skittered down my spine. “And?”
“Our attraction will intensify.”
“Are you kidding me, Nathan?” I shouted, scrambling off his lap and facing him on my knees. “How could it possibly be any stronger?” We could barely keep our hands off each other as it was. It couldn’t—“Oh, fuck,” I whispered as I sank down to sit on my heels. “The full moon.”
My panther perked up at my emotional spike. But when she didn’t see a threat, she brushed her fur against me in a comforting gesture before lying back down contentedly. She hadn’t had a single problem with the intense attraction to Nathan and I was willing to bet that if it strengthened, she’d be ecstatic. In all honesty, I wished I could look at things in such a primal way, ignoring the rest of life’s bullshit.
“Having never experienced it before, I can’t say for certain, but I imagine it would be comparable.”
My brow drew down and I scowled at him. “We can’t possibly live like that.” Something familiar clicked and I stiffened before rasping, “Isn’t there one more stage?”
Nathan looked reluctant to answer, but eventually nodded, then winced at my scream of frustration.
“What the fuck, dog!?”
“It will fade with time.”
I almost sighed with relief, but froze when another thought hit me. “How much time?”
Nathan shrugged. “From what I’ve been told, it’s different for every couple. Completing the fourth stage accelerates it. But we have no control over when it will snap into place, fully mating us.”
He couldn’t be serious. “So it’s just… indefinite?”
“As I said, it will fade. Besides, since you are already pregnant, the driving need to breed shouldn’t be as strong for me. I won’t be as possessive and—”
I snorted with derision and he stopped, raising a single eyebrow. “Shifters are notorious for being overly possessive of their mates, and you’ve been over the top since the moment I showed up here. You really think being fully mated will change that?”
He frowned as he considered my question. I almost smiled because sometime in the last couple of months, I’d started to find his logical mind amusing. It was cute, the way the unexplainable baffled him.