Jayden

Chapter 1-2

She sucked in a sharp breath, and he realized he’d winded her. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he said gruffly, wincing as he felt something slick start to seep onto his stomach. What had once been drying, was wet again.

Dammit.

“I don’t know what was wrong down there,” she said hoarsely… more from horror at what had happened earlier rather than being winded from their tumble. “But you started bleeding. It was--” Her quiet voice went even quieter. “It was everywhere.”

“Where am I now?”

“My motel room. Kon said we needed to get you somewhere private. He dragged you in here, asked me to watch over him while he went to get help.” She swallowed heavily. “It’s been ages.”

“How long?”

“About eighty minutes.”

“Where are we?”

“Just outside Conroe.”

He nodded. “If he drives like hell, he’ll be here soon.”

“Do you want to try to sit up a little? I can take your weight if I brace myself.”

It stunned him that she’d been taking his weight for the past hour and a half.

“No, sugar,” he told her. “We need to move though. You need to get out from under my weight.”

“I’m not worried about me. You’re the one bleeding.” She swallowed again. “Badly.”

“It’s okay.” He reached down and grabbed the closest thing that belonged to her, which in this instance was her calf. He squeezed the soft pad and murmured, “Everything will be well. I promise.”

She sighed. “I’m so sorry for this. I never expected…”

“No. It’s my fault. Our fault. We should have checked the jack.”

She shivered. “I hate to think you’re in so much pain. I thought you were going to die.” The sob in her voice had his eyes widening in panic.

One thing Shifters couldn’t stand was a female in tears.

The only times they could accept it was if it was during s*x or a sappy movie, or if a female Shifter was doing the crying—better for them to cry than to shift and wreak havoc on the poor innocents around them.

And by poor innocents he meant their cousins or brothers.

Ava, his Prez’s daughter, had already shown exactly what she could do when she shifted… Kill half a dozen strong riders for a rival MC.

Female Shifters were not to be trifled with.

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I’m a Shifter. We’re stronger than humans.”

“You promise? Really?” she asked, clinging to his words.

“I do.” He sighed. “Now, let’s help me up so that I can let you out from under me. I don’t want to hurt you, Leila, and if I lie on you much longer like this, that’s what’s going to happen.”

However, she didn’t make to shift. Instead, she asked, “Why do you keep saying I’m your mate?”

He froze, surprised by the query at this particular time. He grimaced. “Can’t we talk about this after I’ve stopped squashing you?”

She squeezed his shoulder. “No. I want to know.”

He huffed out a breath. “I keep saying it because you are.”

“I can’t be,” she whispered. “I’m human.”

He rolled his eyes. “You don’t know much about Shifters, do you?”

“No, not really. I know next to nothing.” Her gulp was audible. “In fact, you’re the only Shifter I’ve ever met.”

“I highly doubt that,” Jayden denied.

“Well, the only one to ever tell me he’s a Shifter, anyway.”

“That’s far more likely.” He sighed. “You’ve never read any of the paranormal romances or anything like that?”

“No,” she whispered softly. “My momma didn’t approve of things like that.”

He narrowed his eyes. “But you’re an adult.”

“I know, but her strictures just stayed with me. I only really read non-fiction.”

“Okay, well, that’s kind of unhelpful.” He huffed out a breath. “Basically, Shifter females are rare. Males can’t always mate with them because of that, and so we mate with human females.”

“Why are Shifter females rare?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just how it is. They never mate with human males, only Shifters, but it can take them longer than most to find their mates.” Well, that had been the case once upon a time.

Both his sister, Jessie, and his Prez’s daughter Ava, who was more like a cousin to him, had both found their mates at ridiculously young ages.

The fact that he’d found Leila was also statistically insane.

Thirty years ago, when his MC Prez and Clan leader, Mars, had met his mate, Annette, nobody in the Clan had met their other halves for decades. Nearly a century.

But once he’d found her, it was like pulling out the plug in the bath.

The whole Council had found their mates, and now, the Council’s kids had too.

They always said the goddesses worked in mysterious ways, but that was an understatement.

“W-What does it mean to be someone’s mate?”

“It’s like a human relationship, only better.”

“Why is it better?” She sounded a little indignant, a bit scared, and a lot curious.

“Because humans choose their partners. They can make mistakes. And let’s face it, they make more mistakes than they have successes. Plus, things like cheating? Yeah, that doesn’t happen. I’m wired to you. I don’t want another female. Plus for Shifter males, it’s important we find our mates. We can’t have cubs without them.”

“Cubs?” Leila squeaked.

“We just call them that. They pop out as babies.” When he heard the breath soughing in and out of her lips, he realized he’d probably just induced a panic attack. Not that great when the big lump of his body weight was cutting down her air flow.

Without her help, and with a huge groan, he rolled off her. She immediately shrieked. “What are you doing?”

It was quite touching. Her responses might have been genuine and could have been the same if he’d been human, but he knew of two reactions to learning someone was a Shifter.

First reaction: they cut the Shifter off. Dismissing them entirely as pieces of s**t.

Second reaction: they accepted them because they were a mate. And doing without a mate was like cutting your nose off to spite your face.

That was kind of the whole gamut of emotional responses to discovering you knew a Shifter and had one in your life.

Of course, this was the latter but he could sense Leila didn’t really ‘get’ the mate vibe yet.

So, she was either just a really good human or she was feeling the mate vibe more than she was letting on.

“I was stopping you from breathing properly,” he grunted out as he collapsed over on his side. “Now, that hurt.”

Not the appropriate amount of pain he should have been feeling at that moment, but enough to make even him twinge in surprise. His nerve endings must have been at overload. That’s all he could say. Not even when he’d set fire to himself, accidentally of course, at a bonfire, had it hurt.

His momma constantly accused him of trying to give her heart attacks, but it wasn’t that he tried to put himself in danger.

It was that he just didn’t really see it.

Kon had made him vow that whatever they did in this life, they’d do it together, even mate together, just so they’d keep him alive past thirty.

So far, so good.

Well, if he survived the day, that is.

“I don’t understand why you’re not screaming,” she confessed softly, sitting up and trying to help arrange him in a more comfortable position.

“I told you. I just don’t feel pain.”

“Everyone feels pain.”

“No. Sometimes some people just don’t.”

She blinked at him. “I’ve never heard of that.”

“Then you haven’t lived.” He snorted out a laugh but saw her face drop, and quickly changed the subject, “But I’m mega weird. Everyone in my Clan knows it, and nobody gets it at first.”

Her eyes brightened. “Oh, well, I’m sorry about that.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” he told her easily. He was only trying to make her feel better, after all. At least the attempt had worked. “Why the hell did he dump me on the floor and not put me on the bed?”

She bit her lip. “I said it would be easier just to leave you here and I could sit with you.” She pointed at the beds. “They’re two singles. We could have pushed them together, but I just wanted him to go get help.”

When she flushed, he knew there was a story there, and one he’d be asking Kon later about.

Hell, there was a lot he’d be asking Kon later. Like, if he felt the mate bond too.

He really prayed that was so. The last thing he wanted was for them to be separated.

After so many years together, having shared so much, he wanted to share Leila. Even if they were way too big for her, he wanted her to know they were hers.

“Did Kon say anything to you about being our mate?” He figured his twin had, but if he’d passed out, Jayden could have been mumbling anything under his breath.

“Yes.” The short answer was further proof there was a story to be told there.

Grinning, and feeling a little more at ease now, he let her roll him back so he wasn’t on his side.

“You’re bleeding again.”

Her chiding had his lips twitching. “I’m sorry to be staining your carpet.”

She huffed. “Like that would matter. I just meant you made it worse again.”

“Wouldn’t matter because it’s not your rug?” he peppered softly. He shot her a look when she didn’t answer, but as she kept her eyes downcast and tilted from him, he had an answer of sorts.

Leila felt it too, he realized. She was just scared of those feelings.

And who could blame her?

Not only were they alien to her, but she had to recognize him, had to know who he was, and what he was here for.

She’d been smart enough to embezzle a small fortune from his MC, so she’d be smart enough to realize they were here for her.

Terror. Honest to God terror.

It was the only way Kon could describe how he felt. In fact, it probably wasn’t enough to describe the sheer horror of knowing his twin could be dying at this very moment, and he wasn’t there.

They’d always been scared that Jayden would die young. Hell, more than scared.

The man should have been a star of Jackass, except he didn’t feel the pain from the stunts he pulled.

They’d binge watched all the old reruns, wondering why the f**k it had been considered entertainment back in the day, but unable to complain when they’d wasted hours on Johnny Knoxville and Steve O.

Fearing it was one thing, knowing it could be happening was another.

At his back his father rode his hog, and Major and his mate, Pip, were at his side too. They hadn’t told their mom, Christie.

Luckily for them, she’d been at work. She was a dentist, of all things. Something so normal for a Bear’s mate, never mind the fact said Bear was also a rider for an MC.

He was just grateful at that minute that she’d been at her practice, and not at the Clan house.

The last thing any of them needed was her wailing on the back of his dad’s hog.

He turned his wrist to look at the time. Ten minutes.

Jesus. So f*****g close and yet so far. He’d already been gone over an hour. A lot could happen in an hour.

Too much.

He sped up, shooting down the highway like a f*****g bullet. He didn’t care if he got stopped by a traffic cop—not that that was likely in this backwater. Even the cops avoided this particular area of Conroe.

The burst of speed got him back at the dump of a motel where he’d left his mate and twin in five minutes.