He didn't miss the longing in Kamryn's voice while she spoke. She sounded as lonely as he felt. "It isn't stupid. There's nothing wrong with wanting to find that one person meant for you. Watching someone else find their mate while you have to sleep in an empty bed night after night, it gets to you."
Raed, former king of East Anglia, and leader of Tiw's warriors, had found his mate, Lexi, five months earlier. Already, they were expecting their first child. Algar didn't begrudge Raed the happiness he found with Lexi, but he had a hard time watching them together, especially since the warriors all lived together. It made Algar long to find his mate. But given his reactions to Kamryn, the aching need to be around her, and her ability to stir his wolf, the thought she could possibly be his had crossed his mind more than once since last night.
As he pulled the Jaguar into the mall parking lot, Algar took a quick glance at Kamryn and found her staring at him with a look of surprise. He'd obviously scored a point in his favor. After he parked the Jag and got out, he walked around to the passenger side and offered to help her out. He locked the doors with his remote and then took her hand in his, entwining their fingers.
When he started them guiding toward the mall entrance, he lifted their joined hands and asked, "Are you okay with this?"
Kamryn nodded, the tip of her tongue darting out to lick her bottom lip. Algar bit back a groan. Each time she did that, his cock jerked inside his jeans. He could almost picture how it would feel to have her tongue circling the head of his cock before she took him in her mouth.
"Good," he said, his voice husky. "Where do you want to shop first?"
"I don't know. I was just going to wander around until something caught my eye."
Algar held open the heavy glass door for Kamryn to walk through ahead of him.
"We can do that."
He gritted his teeth as he and Kamryn merged with the other shoppers. Being a Saturday, it was more than a little crowded. Originally a fifth century man, Algar wasn't comfortable around so many mortals. And given his sensitive werewolf hearing, crowds tended to scrape his nerves raw, but if being here meant he would be able to spend time with Kamryn, he was prepared to endure.
They walked past store after store, with Kamryn stopping every once in a while to window shop. It wasn't until they came across a store selling area souvenirs that she wanted to go inside. Algar released her hand and watched her look over the merchandise. She went to a table stacked with t-shirts that had the White Wolf emblem printed on the front.
The White Wolf was Tiw's mark. He'd also placed it on each of his warriors, on the cap of their left shoulder, done in black to mark them as his. The emblem was Anglo-Saxon in design and depicted the figure of a stylized man, Tiw, flanked on either side by two stylized wolves standing on their hind legs. A purse lid with that design had survived and been found at the Sutton Hoo ship burial, Raed's fake burial site.
Kamryn picked up a black t-shirt with the design done in white. She held it up to show him. "What do you think? Is this tourist enough?"
Knowing she would think it was a tattoo, Algar shrugged his left arm out of his leather jacket and pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt so she could see Tiw's mark. "I'd say I'm partial to it."
Her gaze skimmed over the mark and then moved back to his face. She smiled.
"I'll take that as a yes."
With the t-shirt draped over her arm, Kamryn turned away and moved to the next display table. Algar's gaze drifted down her slim body to her shapely backside.
The jeans she wore were snug enough to give him a well-defined view. The tips of his fingers itched where his claws would emerge as he thought about running them over Kamryn's naked butt, preferably while he sank his cock inside her pussy.
Algar realized how close he was to having his claws come out in a public place.
He forced back his wayward thoughts. If he wasn't careful, his eyes would go wolf as well, the hazel completely taking over the white. If that happened, he wouldn't be able to hide it as easily as he could his claws—more indicators that Kamryn, more than likely, was his mate. Lexi had had the same effect on Raed. Just as Algar was finding to be the case with Kamryn.
Algar focused his attention on Kamryn and had to clench his jaw to stop himself from growling when he saw her talking to a male sales clerk. The man hadn't touched her in any way, but Algar didn't like her around another male.
Algar moved to stand at her side, put a possessive arm around her shoulders, and brought her against his side. He interrupted the sales clerk mid-sentence. "She can find what she wants on her own. You can go help someone else." Algar added a hard stare to back up his words. The clerk left them alone.
Kamryn lifted her head to look at him. "He wasn't being pushy. He was just giving me some history about the Sutton Hoo ship burial. I told him I didn't know much about it. He also told me that was where the design on the t-shirt comes from."
"I could have told you that," Algar said in a gruff voice.
"Since you have it tattooed on your shoulder, I guess you could. The sales clerk was only trying to help."
"Well, he can save his helpfulness for someone else. Are you done here?"
Kamryn grinned. "I guess so. I'll just go pay for the shirt."
Once she moved out from under his arm, Algar followed closely behind her as she made her way over to the till. After she made her purchase, he ushered her out into the mall. "Let's get something to eat."
"Sure. I'm hungry. I'm still trying to adjust to the time here. I stayed up too late last night and slept in too long so I didn't eat breakfast."
"I know of a nice restaurant that isn't too far from here."
"Doesn't the mall have a food court?"
"Yes."
"Why don't we get something from there?"
"You want to eat at the food court?"
Kamryn chuckled. "There's nothing wrong with eating at a mall's food court.
Back home, I do it quite a bit."
"I've never eaten at the food court here, so I couldn't tell you if the food will be good or not."
"Then you don't know what you've been missing." She grabbed his arm and towed him over to one of the mall directories in the center of the wide walkway.
Kamryn ran her finger over it, as if learning the route to the food court.
When they reached it, a barrage of scents from all the different foods filled his nose. Algar didn't find it unpleasant and his stomach did rumble in response. He let Kamryn lead him to one of the few empty tables and then sat across from her. He looked around. Compared to the rest of the mall, this section appeared to be busiest.
The noise level from the many conversations taking place around them, the sound of children shouting and a baby crying, played havoc with his sensitive hearing. And it didn't help matters when a woman, arms loaded with purchases, walked behind his chair and smacked him in the back of the head with one of her shopping bags. He scowled after the mortal, who didn't even bother to stop and apologize.
The sound of Kamryn's laughter brought his attention back to her. "You don't look very comfortable. If you want, we can leave. Don't feel obligated to eat here because of me. I just thought this would be easier than driving to another place."
"I'll be all right. I'm just not one for crowds."
"Since this was my idea, I'll get us our food. You can stay here and save the table.
What would you like?"
Algar scanned the food places. There were quite a few varieties. "I'll have whatever you're having. Here, this should be enough." He pulled out his wallet and took out enough pound notes to cover both his and Kamryn's meals.