It was part of the reason he allowed her to go to begin with. Not a matchmaker, Noah’s ass.
Blake was sending Dmitri, Damara and Liam the next day to take over, but he wanted Noah and Lily to stay until they got there, so they could keep trying to gather intel. And the only reason Noah agreed in the end was because of his gift.
If there were shifters around, he could use whatever gifts they had to keep Lily safe. If she wasn’t there, he’d happily stay behind, because his gift could be useful in situations like that, when the Enforcers were going in basically blind.
But he was getting her the hell out of there the second the other three arrived, and although he’d normally feel bad about leaving them when he could help, that time he didn’t. The Enforcers were his family, no question, but his mate’s safety came first.
His mate.
Shit, that statement had the power to stun him. It still hadn’t completely sunk in yet. He didn’t know if it ever would.
His reservations hadn’t just disappeared, though. He was ecstatic that he’d found his mate, and that fact that she was Lily… She was everything he could ever want in a mate and more.
But she’d been Brandon’s first, and there was a big part of him that felt like she was still his friend’s. He didn’t know if that would ever go away.
Or the knowledge that the only way he was able to have his mate was for Brandon to die first. That thought wasn’t sitting well with him. Lily thought Brandon would give his blessing to them, and maybe she was right, in a way. But he also knew that if he’d found out she was his mate while Brandon was still alive, and tried to win her over, his friend would have fought to the death for her, whether he knew Noah was a shifter or not.
And he couldn’t blame him for that.
Lily’s fingers gripped tighter and he looked around with urgency until she bumped her shoulder into his and snuggled in closer. His racing pulse slowed a little as warmth flooded him, and he glanced down at the top of her head with a smile.
She felt like his every dream come true, cuddled into his side as her other hand came up and gripped his bicep. Fuck… he didn’t even have words for how he felt in that moment.
It was amazing, and heart wrenching at the same time. Because no matter how much he told himself to try not to think about Brandon, he couldn’t help it. As right as she felt, touching him like that, there was a part of him that thought it was Brandon who she should be cuddled up to.
He wasn’t sure how much of that was guilt, and how much was because for the majority of the time he’d known her, it had been Brandon she was cuddled into, but the conflicting feelings inside him left uneasiness rolling through his gut.
Glancing around, he scanned for any threats, and when he found none, he opened his gift and searched for any possible gifts coming from other shifters. Nothing came to him and he relaxed as he saw they’d walked almost the entire length of the festival. They could get out of there soon.
He glanced down, intending to tell her they were going to walk to the truck, but paused when he saw her looking at a booth. It was some sort of carnival type game with stuffed animals for prizes—mostly dragons, he saw—and he started guiding her over there.
He might not be sure how he felt about everything, but she was his mate, and he wasn’t going to let her go without a fight. Even if the fight was with himself. And if a guy took his girl on a date to a festival or carnival or whatever, didn’t he try to win her a prize?
They were working, not going on a date, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t stop for a minute and make their time at the festival a little fun.
“Where are you going? Do you see something?
” she asked, her voice so low that he thought he wouldn’t have been able to hear her at all if he were a human.
Squeezing her hand, he shook his head. “Relax. Just going to have a little fun before we leave.”
She looked at him questioningly but when he pulled her to a stop in front of the booth and she saw where they were, her eyes lit up. She did the most adorable little hop as she looked up at him. “Really?”
Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, inhaling her strawberry scented shampoo. “Yes, really.”
“These games are rigged, you know.”
Suppressing a smile as the operator came close just in time to hear her and scowl, he eased his hand from her grip. “Don’t worry. I got this.”
She looked between him and the basketball hoop dubiously and gestured as she stood back. “By all means. Show me how it’s done.”
Winking at her, he pulled a five-dollar bill out of his wallet. The operator handed him a basketball, and he aimed and shot, watching with satisfaction as it went straight into the hoop. He sank the other two just as effortlessly, and when he was done, even the operator looked impressed.
“Take your pick from any size,” he said, gesturing at the booth.
Noah glanced over at Lily, feeling pride fill him at the way she was looking at him. It was just a silly carnival game, and the prize was a cheaply made stuffed animal, but the way she was looking at him made him feel like he’d just snatched the moon from the sky for her.
If he could, he’d give her that, too.