Sara refused to so much as glance back at Rhett, though she heard his steps behind her as she marched out of the woods, through the field, and around the house to her car.
She slammed her car door and locked it. She saw Rhett’s figure, standing off in the distance, near the house. She shook her head in disgust as she pulled away from the Wolfe’s place.
Nothing about this evening had gone the way that Sara had hoped or expected. Meeting Rhett had been great, and so was the little magic show they both had performed. Even the sex was mind-blowingly fantastic. Right up until the end when Rhett had to go and fuck it all up by marking her as his mate without even so much as a single conversation regarding the subject.
That was what had pissed her off the most. She might have understood if he would have said, hey, if we have sex out here in the woods during the scenting ceremony, I’m going to have a hard time holding myself back from marking you.
She wondered what she would have said if he had let her know that was a possibility. Part of her thought that she was so caught up in the night’s excitement that she probably would have told him, go ahead.
There was a magic in the air, she knew that much, and sometimes you couldn’t resist when magic pushed.
He had been swept up in things more powerful than they were. Fate, magic, ceremony … it all added up to what had happened between them … from the fantastic sex to the mating bite. Rhett wouldn’t have ever been in this position before. Shifters usually only get one mate, so that would mean that Sara was the first woman he’d connected with at a scenting ceremony.
How was he supposed to know he’d lose control and bite her?
It was unreasonable for her to expect him to have given her a warning. She understood getting swept away by magic.
As she left the Blue Creek town line, she couldn’t deny that she was less mad at Rhett for losing control and more terrified of what this actually meant for her.
I’ve been outside the Academy for such a short time, and suddenly I’m mated to a wolf? What does that mean for me?
She needed some sleep. Some time to clear her head.
She almost decided to hop into bed as soon as she arrived home, but despite the fact that it was nearly two in the morning, she needed to clean up first. She was filthy from the forest floor.
Plus, she wanted to wash away the feeling of Rhett.
As the warm water washed over her, she honed in on that idea. She needed to just forget about him. Forget that he’d marked her. She wasn’t a shifter, so what difference did it make to her life if she had some stupid scar on her shoulder?
So it might make her undesirable to other shifters. Oh well. She could date another witch. Or a vampire. Or heck, even a regular old human.
Or she could just go back to living her life the way she had for so many years already: alone. Doing her own thing without having anyone else messing things up for her.
Easier said than done. She pulled the twigs and leaves out of her hair, and her mind flashed back to the sex they’d had, and immediately her core heated.
Her body still wanted him, even if her mind was trying to forget him.
That much was made even more clear when she soaped up her loofah and rubbed it over her body. Her nipples, in particular, perked right up, giving her thoughts of his hands and mouth on them.
She tried to push the thoughts of him out of her mind, but as she closed her eyes and relaxed into the water, she realized that something inside her body felt different. Yes, the sexual awareness was there, but something else was too.
Did this have something to do with the mating bite?
She sighed as she left the shower. Maybe it was just the post-sex high. Perhaps she’d wake up feeling like herself again.
If not, she would need to call up Barbara and get the full details on what this claiming bite meant.