No. The word continuously raced around Jaime’s brain. Her mate. He was her mate.
She didn’t need to ask herself how she hadn’t realized this before now. How would she have known? She could recall asking her mom about mating bonds when she was a little girl. Her mom had explained that a mating bond was like a frequency; if it was jammed by something—fears, mental barriers, doubts, an imprint bond, a reluctance to mate—the frequency couldn’t be picked up.
By caging her wolf and building so many walls, there was no way Jaime could have sensed it.
Dante was no more open than she was. He had walls of his own, not to mention a total aversion to finding his true mate. And what with her having that same aversion, neither of them had had a hope in hell of sensing it.
Maybe it should have occurred to her, since she’d been drawn to him even when they were kids, but plenty of people had crushes. A girl could crush on plenty of guys over the years, thinking she was totally and unquestioningly in love with each one of them at the time. Never with any of those guys had she wondered if it meant that he was her mate, so why would she have thought her crush on Dante was anything more than exactly that—a simple crush?
It wasn’t really important at this point. Now that she knew the truth, she had to figure out what she was supposed to do about it. What could she do about it? She sure couldn’t claim him for obvious reasons. But how could she be around him each day without doing so? Even now, she could feel the urge to take what was hers building in her system, taunting her, hounding her, and nagging at her.
Now she could understand exactly what Shaya and Nick were going through. No wonder the guy was finding it so difficult to stay away from Shaya. The draw was more than a simple attraction, more than just a pull. It was magnetic, enticing, a pressure on the mind that had nowhere to go. It was a crushing and overwhelming craving, as if she needed to feed an addiction. She honestly felt as though she might soon shake with the beating need to claim him.
The longer mates resisted, the worse the urge to claim became. Suddenly she felt a little sorry for Nick. Not that it excused his behavior. But she could understand it, just like she could understand Shaya’s need to be away from this person to whom she knew she would never be mated. There was no way that Jaime could be around Dante every day while this urge was gnawing at her. The only choice she had was to leave, even if the idea did send a dull pain knifing through her body and soul. It was that or go absolutely insane.
Gabe’s words suddenly came to her: his contention that if she ever left, Dante would track her down and bring her back. But Dante wasn’t stupid. He’d know that there was no way that they could claim each other as mates. It wouldn’t be simple to get any wolf—let alone a very dominant, controlling, possessive male wolf—to resist claiming his mate. But the sad reality was that they had no other choice but to part ways, and he would know that.
Jaime knew he was nearing her before she even scented him. She was now totally aware of him and of every move he made, and this awareness prickled all over her skin and tantalized her nerve endings.
“I think you and I need to have a talk,” Dante said into her ear. He could easily hear the lust and desperation in his voice. If he didn’t get inside her soon, if he didn’t claim her, he was going to lose it.
“Really? What about?” Playing dumb probably wouldn’t work, but she figured that if she just kept denying him he might get pissed and march off in a huff—inadvertently giving her time to pack and leave.
Dante wasn’t surprised by her response. He’d known that she would fight this. While he acknowledged the sense and logic in that, he also knew that nothing would prevent him from claiming her. Not her, not her anxiety, and not the chance that he would die with her if she turned rogue and was killed. “Our room. Now.”
“Why?” She kept her manner cool, knowing it would irritate both him and his wolf. His warning growl proved her to be right.
“We need to talk in private.”
Acting confused, she shrugged. “Okay. But we can do that in the office.” She knew perfectly well what would happen if they were anywhere near a bed.
“Someone might disturb us there. Let’s take a walk outside.” Reluctantly, Jaime allowed Dante to lead her outside and down to the clearing by the lake.
Only then did he release her hand before coming to stand in front of her. “No more playing games, Jaime. You know exactly what this is about.”
“I know that you’re acting weird.”
“I get that you’re scared, baby, and I get why. But if you expect me not to claim you, you don’t know me at all.”
“Claim me?” She forced a disbelieving shake of the head. “I thought you were totally against imprinting.”
His wolf bared his teeth. “Don’t, Jaime. Denying who I am to you pisses my wolf and me off more than you can ever imagine.”
Good. “On a serious note, did you bang your head or something, sweetie? Or maybe you’re talking in code. Yeah, I don’t understand code. I can speak Thundercat.”
“Jaime, this is a dangerous game you’re playing, baby. Stop. Now.”
“Okay, now you’re starting to freak me out. I think I’ll just go on back to—”
“Don’t move, Jaime.” He went nose to nose with her. “You can keep on playing games, or you can acknowledge that I’m your mate, and we’ll discuss it like adults. Choose.”
“Your mate? You’re kidding, right?” Before she could see it coming, he wrapped one arm around her, pinning her own to her sides. With his free hand, he put pressure on the baroreceptor in the carotid artery at the base of her neck where it met her shoulder. Ten seconds or so later, she passed out.
God, who the hell was moaning? Oh, it was her, Jaime realized dazedly as she opened her eyes. It took no more than five seconds to remember exactly why she was in that daze. It was never a nice feeling waking up after blacking out, but it was worse when it had been your damn mate who sent you to dreamland. She’d kill the jerk.
Quickly it registered in her brain that that might be a little difficult right now. Not only were her wrists bound together, but they were pinned above her head. Pinned to a tree. Yes, two thick ropes—the same kind that he used for his cruel assault course—were securing her body to a tree; one was looped around her waist and the other was looped around her tied wrists. She really was going to kill him.
“Dante? Dante, what the hell is this?”