He pulled her so her body was flush against his. "We do it, just usually not in front of women. Call us old-fashioned."
She nodded like the ridiculousness of his statement made something clearer to her. "I guess all of you were born in time periods long past so it makes sense."
"Are you being obtuse? Did you not see what happened there? You saved my life."
"I know I certainly couldn't leave you there to die." Her eyes said there was more to the story but for right now he wouldn't press. Realizing he squeezed her shoulders tightly he forced himself to decrease the pressure in his hands.
"I just vanished. I could see what was happening but even you couldn't see me and more and more I became removed from all that was around me."
Faith stared into his eyes, her brown and gold irises boring into his soul, stripping him naked of all of his defenses.
"I have all sorts of feelings for you, Theo, things I shouldn't be feeling this soon after just meeting you but I know you're my mate, I've witnessed what that means. Two people who have never laid eyes on one another before suddenly can't exist without the other one, would die without the other one. Tell me how it happens; it already feels so intense, what's going to make it more so?"
Theo shook his head. He wished he could answer her. "I don't know, Faith. Honestly, I don't. It's a closely guarded secret between the couple, even mated pairs don't discuss it amongst other mated pairs but it seems to happen with the actual mating act. That's all I know."
"Because I basically felt like I was going to die if you died and I know that after we mate, if you do die, I'll be compelled to follow as fast as I can, right? That's how it works."
Theo nodded. "With very few exceptions, notable my deranged father. He killed my mother and didn't follow her, obviously. My two Aunts, the two women who were married to my father's brothers, they didn't follow my Uncles during the crisis but lived in agony every day of their lives in order to ensure the pack still had mystics in it until the other women returned."
"Doesn't sound like me. I've never been particularly self-sacrificing."
Theo ran his hands through her dark, silky locks. Closing his eyes, he pulled a strand to his nose so he could memorize the scent. Honey and spring rain, two of his favorite scents. Why was he not surprised?
Tell her how wonderful she is. Theo was glad to hear his wolf had returned from his long absence.
"I don't think you see yourself the way others see you."
Faith narrowed her eyes. "Or maybe you don't know enough about me to make that judgment."
"Oh yeah?" This he had to hear. "What are you big bad secrets Faith? Murdered anyone is cold blood? Stole money from impoverished little old ladies?"
She pulled out of his arms. Immediately he felt bereft, although he didn't chase her. Whatever she wanted to say must be very important to her. What little he knew of female shifters told him it was best to shut up and let her get it out of her system.
Her eyes bore into his, begging for understanding and he regretted saying the last smug thing he'd said. What if she had no choice and had killed someone? He was going to feel like the biggest scum on the earth. "I was a private detective. My partner and I ran a business together, I was the one who could seek out and find information. If you thought your spouse cheated on you, I could find the answer and I was never wrong. I know now that had to do with my wolf skills-even though at the time I didn't know I had them."
"Lots of people do that for a living. Again, it's not like you made those men or women stray."
"No." She shook her head. "It's not that I'm embarrassed by my former job. Not at all. It was my partner--Andrew--he died and it was all my fault and I can't help but feel that first of all, fate has a huge sense of irony by making me a wolf and, two, I have no business being happy and certainly not with someone as noble as you."
He rolled his eyes because he couldn't help it. "Noble? That's a little dramatic. My nephew was being kidnapped, anyone would do the same. I think you can count on it."
"Oh Theo, you've never lived outside of this island, have you?"
"We all did for a while--before our world all but ended thirty some-odd years ago. I went to college. I have a degree in mechanical engineering, although when we rebuilt the Institute I got a good lesson in just how out of date my fifty-five year old education actually was."
"I'm not sure what the world was like fifty-five years ago but now it's quite different. Not everyone would rescue a child from a monster or a burning building, not if it meant risking their own life--even if the child in question is family."
His mate was a cynic and the thought made his chest tighten. If Kendrick hadn't done what he did she would have been raised on the island among the pack and most likely would never have developed her negative sense of the world. Not that he could blame her; he didn't exactly see life as roses and fairytales either, but it broke his heart that she didn't.
"Okay. Say I believe that--and I still think that most people would do what they could for a family member, especially a juvenile one--what does that have to do with anything at all?"
"Andrew was our front man. Most people didn't want to hire a woman to be their private detective. That's all fine and good in movies and in books but in real life people want men to do that kind of job, even if the woman is better at it."
"So you let people think this Andrew was the one doing the actual work?" So far he followed her story.
She nodded. "I did. Although I let him do some investigation, if I felt it was simple and he could handle the situation. We grew up together. Sometimes we were in the same orphanage, sometimes one of us was temporarily fostered, in his case sometimes he was in juvenile detention, but we always wound up back together. I used to wish I could love him--I mean, I loved him, I just wasn't in love with him--and now I know why."
He walked two paces until he could touch her and reached out to stroke her cheek gently. "It was lonely for me too, Faith. I longed for you too."
To his horror, one tear slipped from his mate's eye before she blinked it away.
"But you see, that's the thing. I wasn't lonely--romantically, I was--but I had Andrew. We were each other's family even though we didn't have our real families. His mother was a drug addict who couldn't take care of him so we took care of each other. I used to make up stories about mine. Depending on who you asked, my parents were lunatic sociopaths or expatriate freedom fighters."
"Or people who could turn into wolves?"
She shook her head. "No, I was years past believing that fantasy. That particular theme had been taken care of."
Theo wasn't sure Faith had taken him seriously earlier when he said he was going to find the people who had beat her, but he had been, and once this situation with the demons was done he would enjoy showing them just how terrified they had made a small child feel. He shook his head. There were things to focus on before he could think about that.
"So what happened to Andrew?"
Theo had to admit, and maybe he was a caveman, but he just didn't like discussing another man with Faith. How close had they actually gotten and what did it mean they were family to one another? He knew there had been other men in her life but had this one meant so much to her that she thought she couldn't pursue the mating ritual with him?
"I sent him on what I thought was a small case. A woman's husband had been committed to what I thought was a psychiatric facility for the very rich in Mexico, basically a spa. She was convinced that he was cheating on her because his conversations had become so sporadic and the director of the facility had no explanation. It seemed like a simple case of fly down there, take some photos, come back and I was up to my neck in a deeply complicated commercial espionage case."