“You are. I’m gonna march myself right down to Moony’s and tell Lila what you’ve done. You think she’ll still want to be with you after that?”
“You’d have to admit you’re a shifter for that.”
“And you still haven’t told her about your wolf? Jesus, Mason. You really are horrible. Get out of my town before someone gets hurt. I mean it. I want you out by sundown. I won’t have a fight happening where one of the locals can get hurt.”
Cohen began to walk away without saying another word or looking back at him.
“I can’t leave,” Mason said to his back. “Lila is my mate. Where she is, that’s where I’ll be.”
Cohen immediately stopped walking. His back was straight as he slowly began to turn to look back at Mason. “What did you just say?”
“Lila. She’s my mate.”
Cohen looked like he was about to explode from anger. “How could you possibly know that?”
Mason frowned at him. “What do you mean? How can I know? You know how. It’s easy for our kind. All we have to do is pay attention to our wolves.”
Cohen’s face was darkened and full of fury. “Right, but how did your wolf know? Did he tell you?”
“Seriously? You are being so fucking weird right now. There is nothing simpler than the mate sense. We know when we have met our mate. You know how it works.”
Cohen nodded like he had a bar through his neck. “Yup. That easy. Even here in wonky Half Moon Key, apparently.”
“Are you okay, Cohen? You look like you swallowed a whole lemon.”
“I’m fine. Yeah. If Lila is your mate, and you want to stay in town, you do what you gotta do. I’ll see you around, bro.” Cohen walked away and didn’t even turn to say another word, even as Mason called him back.
“This is your house. Your dock. Where are you going? I bet the panther smell is just that new guy in town. Nothing to worry about. He came into Moony’s. He’s a good guy. No link to the Stevens, from what I could tell. You’re being paranoid, bro.”
Cohen didn’t answer. Mason immediately … eveninstinctively… knew that his brother was keeping something from him. He should’ve been a good brother and pressed to know what was going on, but he didn’t have the time. He had to get back to Lila. Or, more to the point, hewantedto get back to Lila.
SIXTEEN
LILA
Before Lila could go back downstairs to spend her evening with Mason, she wanted to check on Nana one last time. She and Mason had a whole routine now that they were officially dating. They closed the diner together before they went back to her place to share a late dinner.
Then things usually got interesting.
Even though they would say they were exhausted and that all they wanted to do was watch a movie and cuddle before passing out, they always ended up naked and satiated in her bed.
Lila would never look at her bedroom or her shower the same way. Mason was everywhere in her house now. He was woven into the very fabric of Half Moon Key.
More importantly, he was woven into the fabric of her life. Of her heart.
She was falling hard for the man she knew could leave town at a moment’s notice. She had tried to keep herself scared. She tried hard to push him away, but her heart just didn’t want to play that game. Not with Mason. Something deep in her soul was adamant: Mason wasn’t going anywhere. He was there to stay.
For fuck’s sake, they had saidI love youbefore even sleeping together.
Did it matter that it was entirely accidental the first time she said it? Nope. It didn’t make a lick of difference because she was sure shedidlove Mason.
It was such a powerful force that she was suddenly sure that she had not loved Erik. Not in the same way she loved Mason. There was something between them that was different. It was like finding the missing part of her soul that had always felt raw and bare without Mason Pierce.
She was sure that’s how her parents had felt about each other, and sheknewit was how her grandparents felt about each other. They had talked about it enough when she was growing up.
Lila had always wanted that kind of love, but she had given up on it living in Half Moon Key and its tiny dating pool.
Apparently, all she had been waiting for was Mason Pierce.