Taryn nodded. “Yup. Trey almost strangled my father to death once. They got past it eventually, but neither likes the other. Greta did her best to scare me off, as you know. Now she just does it for fun.”
Jaime blew up yet another balloon. “I don’t get along with any of Dante’s brothers, so I wouldn’t worry that Nick and Marcus aren’t friends. Thankfully, Gabe and Dante get along, though. Gabe and I are close, so that’s important to me.”
Shaya came to aid Roni in wrapping Grace’s gifts. “You’re surprised that Marcus stayed behind, aren’t you?”
Roni snorted. “Aren’t you?” she asked around her lollipop, but it was a rhetorical question.
“Sweetie, he walked through the door, made a beeline for you, and kissed you soundly on the mouth in front of your pack and family.”
“Really?” Taryn seemed excited.
“That kind of public display coming from a guy like Marcus, who avoids relationships like the plague, says a lot about where his head’s at.” Shaya stuck a huge bow on the gift Roni had finished wrapping.
“The question is,” began Jaime, “where’s your head at, Roni?”
When Roni didn’t answer, Shaya gave her a gentle smile. “Okay, I get that you don’t really like to confide in anyone other than Derren . . . but I have to admit, I’m totally jealous you don’t talk to me. I can be petty like that.”
Roni’s mouth twitched into a smile. She took out her lollipop. “It’s nothing personal, okay. I’m the type to work things out by myself. I talk to Derren because it’s the only way to make sure he comes to me when he needs to talk.” The guy had some seriously dark demons.
Shaya nodded in understanding. “All right. So what have you worked out?”
“I’ve worked out that Marcus annoys me.”
Lydia laughed. “In what way?”
“He defends me. And he makes me share stuff. And he respects my strength. And he doesn’t make me feel like I need to change.”
Jaime made an “ah” sound. “He’s making himself important to you, and you’re not too happy about that, because losing him would hurt. Yeah, I get it. I was determined not to mate with Dante. But he got through all my defenses, the jerk.”
Back then, Jaime had stopped shifting because her wolf was so traumatized, she attacked anyone around—viewing them as a potential threat. But her wolf had been fighting to break free, and Jaime had known that if it happened, her wolf might turn rogue and have to be killed. As such, she hadn’t wanted to mate with Dante—not even when she’d discovered they were true mates—for fear that if she were killed, he wouldn’t survive the breaking of the mating bond.
“I did my best to keep Nick at a distance,” said Shaya. “I was just so mad at him, so hurt. But he smashed down every wall I had up. Dominant males are good at that. It’s not possible to catch them; they’re too elusive for that. But when they decide a female is going to be theirs, they won’t stop until they have her.”
Roni rocked back on her heels. “Whoa, it’s really not that serious between me and Marcus.”
Lydia gave her a wan smile. “I know you probably won’t want to hear about his sexual history, but let me just say I’ve known Marcus a long time, and he has never been so totally into a female before.”
“When he does that thing where he focuses all that charm and dominant male energy on you, Roni . . .” Taryn fanned her face. “Yowza.”
Jaime laughed. “May I just say we’ve loved that you haven’t made it easy for him.”
Lydia nodded. “It’s about time he had to work for something. And he has worked for you, hasn’t he?”
Roni couldn’t deny that he had. She was private, unsociable, and awkward, but he hadn’t let her keep him away. He’d persevered, practically hunted her down. And now he’d publically staked a temporary claim on her. But she wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking he was around for good. “He’s going to want his mate.”
“Dante didn’t,” said Jaime, tying ribbons on the ends of the balloons. “He thought she’d be someone who couldn’t accept that he was Beta, who’d want him to choose between her and his position. One of the reasons he decided he wanted to imprint with me was that he realized I’d never make him choose. It turned out imprinting wasn’t necessary, but you get my point.”
Taryn spoke then. “Not all shifters are set on finding their mates. Some don’t like the idea that they’re not in charge of their own path. Some have a preconceived notion of what their mate will be like, and they reject it. And some choose to imprint, aware that there’s a possibility they’ll never find their true mate anyway.”
“You have to consider that Marcus has been circling you since you guys first met,” said Shaya. “It’s clearly more than casual sex to him. That’s not something you can blow off.”
Roni got what Shaya was saying: if things continued to be so intense, the next step would be imprinting—and it could even happen without Roni or Marcus consciously causing it. How had they gone from discussing Marcus’s safety to the subject of mating? Uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had headed, Roni shoved her lollipop back into her mouth.
Shaya sighed, her smile affectionate. “Okay, I can take a hint. But let me just say that I know letting yourself care for someone is majorly scary, and I know it’s appealing to throw up some barriers, but it truly isn’t worth it—he’ll just knock them down.”