Shifter Forbidden Mate

Chapter Eight

Soren’S POV

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Eira murmurs, her voice low and careful, like she’s afraid that speaking too loudly might break something.

I shift slightly on the mattress and immediately regret it. Pain blooms sharp and insistent along my side, radiating out from my ribs in a way that makes it clear Art didn’t exaggerate when he said at least one of them cracked. I force myself not to grimace.

“I mean,” I say, aiming for casualness and landing somewhere closer to smug, “if I say I’m not, will you give me another sponge bath?”

She snorts softly. “I was going to do that anyway.”

“See? Then I’m definitely not all right.”

She shakes her head, but there’s a smile tugging at her mouth. “You’re impossible,” she says. Then, more seriously, “But do you know what you look like right now?”

Honestly, I’m more preoccupied with what she looks like.

She’s kneeling beside the bed, sleeves shoved up past her elbows, her hands damp from the bowl of water she’s been using to clean me. There’s a faint smear of dirt along her forearm she must have missed washing off after the fight. When she leans forward, her shirt rides up just enough that I catch a glimpse of her stomach lean, compact, all wiry strength. Her dark blonde hair is tangled and messy, like she ran her fingers through it too many times instead of bothering with a brush.

She looks like someone who’s been in the woods, who’s been in danger, who came out the other side breathing hard and alive.

It does something to me that I’m not prepared to unpack.

“Like a badass who helped kill a monster,” I say. “That’s my guess.”

“Not exactly.” She reaches over to the nightstand and picks up a hand mirror, holding it out to me.

For a second, I’m distracted by the object itself. “Who even owns one of those?” I ask. “What kind of shifter are you?”

She arches an eyebrow. “The kind who lives in the human world?”

Right. Fair.

I take the mirror and angle it toward my face.

“f**k,” I mutter.

Art did a good job setting my nose it’s straight again, at least but the bruising under my eyes is spectacular. Dark and ugly, spreading like ink. I look like I lost a fight. I hate that.

“Yeah,” she says gently. “You ran face-first into a tree.”

“Heroically,” I add. “For the record.”

She sets the mirror aside and curls closer, careful of my injuries. Her shoulder presses lightly into mine, and she kisses the side of my neck, just below my jaw. Her lips are warm. Familiar already, somehow.

“Does this hurt?” she asks, her fingers tracing lightly along my ribs.

“Yeah,” I admit. “A bit. I’ll be fine.”

She pauses, then leans back to look at me properly. “Soren,” she says, frowning, “it’s a broken rib. Shouldn’t we take you to the hospital?”

“The hospital?” I shake my head immediately. “No. No, that’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

I blink at her. “Because… we can’t? Shifter physiology would just confuse the hell out of human doctors. And besides, I’ll be fine by morning.”

She stares at me.

“By morning?” She repeats slowly.

“Yeah.” I hesitate. “I mean… maybe a little sore, but ”

“Soren,” she says, cutting me off, “broken ribs take months to heal.”

“For humans,” I say. “Not for us. With accelerated healing ”

“Our what?”

That stops me cold.

I search her face, looking for the joke, but she’s serious. Confused. Uncertain.

“Shifters heal faster than humans,” I say carefully. “You… knew that, right?”

She hesitates. Just a fraction of a second too long.

“I I guess I never really thought about it,” she says. “I’ve never had occasion to find out.”

“You’ve never been injured?”

“Nothing serious,” she says. “Cuts, bruises. Stuff like that.”

“And they healed quickly,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “But I just figured I was lucky. Or… good at healing.”

“You are,” I tell her softly. “Because you’re a shifter.”

Something tightens in her expression.

“Didn’t your pack explain this?” I ask. “Your parents?”

She looks away. “I told you,” she says. “I’ve been on my own for a while.”

There’s more there. I can feel it. But pushing now would be a mistake.

Instead, I curl my arm around her and draw her closer.

Because of my injuries, my brothers insisted I take the bed tonight. Draven is sprawled on the floor near the couch, snoring loud enough to rattle the walls. Art isn’t here at all. I’m pretty sure he’s on the roof, keeping watch like he always does after one of us gets hurt.

It’s ridiculous. We’re in a locked apartment, in the human part of town, with no indication the monsters followed us.

But Art has always been like that. Guarding is in his bones.

“It feels like fate,” I say quietly, breaking the silence. “Finding you.”

Eira stiffens slightly, then relaxes again.

“I mean it,” I continue. “You fit with us. All three of us were worried about who Titus would saddle us with. A bad fourth can wreck a whole team. But there hasn’t been any friction. Not once.”

“No,” she agrees, slowly. “It’s gone well.”

I lean in and kiss her, unhurried, letting myself breathe her in. She’s gentle with me, careful of my injuries, her hands light where they rest against my chest and shoulder.

I’m aware of my body’s response, but I ignore it. Tonight isn’t about that. It can wait.

Her fingers curl idly around my wrist, stroking my skin in a way that feels unconscious, instinctive. Like she’s touching me because not touching me would feel wrong.

That does far more to me than anything overt ever could.

“You should stay with us,” I say suddenly.

She stills. “Stay with you?”

“What’s happening here it matters,” I say. “I know Art and Draven feel it too. We’ve been looking for a mate. Someone who fits what we already have. And I can’t imagine anyone better than you.”

She blinks. “You mean… move in here?” she asks. “With me?”

I laugh softly. “God, no. This place is tiny. We’d tear it apart in a week.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I mean Shifter Town.”

She pulls back, her hand dropping from my arm.

“Shifter Town,” she repeats.

“You’d like it,” I said quickly. “It’s not like a traditional pack. No alpha breathing down your neck. Everyone looks out for each other, but you’re free. You make your own choices.”

“Don’t monsters live there?” she asks. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

“A few,” I admit. “They mostly keep to themselves. They’re not so bad when they’re not running in gangs.”

She gives me a look. “That’s not comforting.”

I grin. “Okay, fair. The jackals are worse. They’ll steal anything not nailed down.”

“Is that allowed?”

“It’s not allowed,” I say. “But if you don’t get caught, it doesn’t matter.”

She snorts. “You’re really selling this.”

“I’m just being honest,” I say. “It’s rough. But it’s home. And more and more shifters are choosing it. People who don’t want to live under someone else’s thumb.”

She rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling.

“Just think about it,” I say quietly. “You wouldn’t be alone anymore.”

She doesn’t answer.

And something in my chest tightens, because I realize how badly I want her to say yes.