CHAPTEREIGHT
Sara’s body quaked as she came down from her final climax. Every inch of her body was hyper-sensitive to the smallest of touches. Each brush of his fingers over her skin sent new surges of pleasure shooting through her. She had never felt anything like it in her entire life.
Rhett kissed and licked her full breasts as she ran her fingers through his thick dark hair. “Mmmm,” she softly moaned. “That was amazing.”
“Better than I could have imagined,” Rhett said, rolling to his side.
The two of them laying there, naked on the forest floor, brought a sense of peace to her that she wasn’t sure could ever be replicated.
They were in the absolute most perfect moment that she could ever imagine.
The smile on his face melted her heart. And good God, those eyes of his, reflecting the moonlight as he gazed at her. She melted even further into them. How that was even possible was beyond her, but she did.
As her senses returned, she felt an aching pain on her shoulder. She reached up and touched the spot. It was wet.
She looked at her fingers and saw the blood on them.
She looked at Rhett questioningly. Had he bitten her? She didn’t remember it, but she’d been far too lost in the heat of the moment to process everything that was happening at once.
The entire experience was like nothing she could have ever dreamed possible. Especially this late in life. Sara thought for certain that there was nothing new she could learn or discover when it came to sex.
Boy, was she wrong. Seriously fucking wrong.
He pressed his lips together. “Yeah, about that. We should probably talk about it,” Rhett said, sitting up.
An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of Sara's stomach at the sudden serious look on Rhett’s face. The post-coital bliss she had been feeling vanished instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“It occurs to me that perhaps you weren’t fully aware what you were walking into tonight and that my animal side may have …”
“May have what?” Sara asked, sitting up and finding her clothes to dress as he’d started to do the same.
She touched the wound again and noticed it was healing already.
“I marked you.”
“Marked me?”
“Claimed,” he added. “As my official mate.”
She blinked at him. “Um, isn’t that something maybe I should have had a say in?”
He nodded, looking properly chagrined. “I’m sorry. I got caught up in the moment. In the night. In the excitement of meeting you and in the knowledge that tonight is a special night for mates. The night we’re supposed to claim our mates.”
Sara was at a loss. “What exactly does this mean for me?”
“You’ll have a scar there, for one.”
“And for two?”
“Other shifters will know you’ve been claimed. You may find that other shifters won’t want to date you.”
What? Sara took a deep breath. She was having a hard time processing what had just happened and what it all meant, and she didn’t think she was going to get any clarity on it all standing there in the woods.
“I need to go home.” She started walking back toward the path.
“Sara. Please,” Rhett begged, reaching out to stop her, but she avoided his grasp.
“No.” Sara felt her magic bubbling just under her skin, but it was more than that. There was something else driving her anger. She just couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Her magic felt somehow different. Like she was more powerful somehow. Was it because the anger was fueling it?