Jennifer Ashley - Hard Mated

“Nah, Shifters heal fast.”

Spike’s legs buckled then, and Ella and Myka got him to the sofa, easing him down next to Jordan. Spike put his hand on his cub’s back, and his face relaxed.

“Thank the Goddess he’s all right.” He looked at Myka. “Thank you, love.”

Ella took a throw from another chair and tucked it around Spike. “You rest. And talk to Myka. I’m going to bed.” Ella leaned down and kissed Spike on the forehead, resting her cheek against his unbruised one. “You two have a lot to talk about.”

She straightened up, enfolded Myka in a hug, kissed her cheek, and started up the stairs, yawning as she went.

Myka lifted Jordan, sat down at Spike’s side, and cradled the jaguar cub on her lap. She’d done this with Jordan many nights when Jillian had worked and then began struggling with her illness. Jordan was adorable with his too-big ears and too-big feet, tail curled around himself, his body limp.

“I think we do need to talk,” Myka said to Spike.

Spike slid his bandaged and blood-stained arm around Myka’s shoulders and pulled her close. That had to hurt him, but he nuzzled her hair and planted a firm kiss on the top of her head.

“I don’t want to talk,” Spike said. “I just want to say what I have to say.” He tilted her head back so she looked into his face. “Don’t go. Ever. Stay with me. Be my mate.” The anguish in his eyes didn’t come from the pain in his body. “Please.”

Please again. The warrior who’d leapt from moving motorcycle to truck to tear apart the men taking Myka and Jordan, looked at her in longing and said, Please.

Myka wound her fingers through his, studying their twined hands. “This mate bond. Ellison said it was an amazing thing. What is he talking about?”

Spike lifted their clasped hands to his chest. “It means I’m bound to you, no matter what. As long as you’re breathing, I’ll be with you, facing the world with you.” He drew her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “If you don’t feel the bond, I’ll suck it up and live with it. But I’m not sorry I have it for you.”

Myka unlaced her hand from his and laid her palm against his chest. “What does it feel like?”

“Warm. Hurts.” Spike smiled, which pulled at his swollen face. “Feels good. Better than sex.”

Myka’s eyes widened. “No way. A male thinks something is better than sex?”

“So you know it’s good. ’Course, the mate bond’s even better when we’re having sex.”

“Of course,” Myka said, then she lost her smile. “I’m not Shifter. What if I can’t share this mate bond?”

Spike shrugged. “I didn’t think humans could before. But I’ve seen Liam with Kim, and Ronan with Elizabeth. It can happen.”

Myka traced the tattoos on Spike’s chest where the skin was still whole, the lines of a crouching jaguar. “Let me tell you what I feel. Whenever I see you coming, my heart lightens. I think, Oh, goody, I get to be with Spike. When I’m not with you, all I think about is you. When I see how much you care about Jordan, you make me want to cry. You’re nothing at all like my stepdad, and you never will be. He was selfish and self-centered, and you’re a protector. You protect everyone. Your grandmother wouldn’t love you so much if you weren’t so amazing. You even got your nickname doing something generous for her. And whenever I think about going back to my everyday life, without you in it, I find it hard to breathe.”

A grin stretched across Spike’s face as she went through this speech, so much hope in his eyes that it broke her heart. “Are you saying you like me a little?”

“I’m saying I love you.”

Spike’s smile died. He stilled one heartbeat, two, then he hauled Myka into his arms and against him. Jordan spilled from Myka’s lap to Spike’s, but he didn’t wake and didn’t seem to mind.

Spike kissed her lips, his strong, masterful. “Goddess, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever found. I love you, Myka.”

Their mouths met again, Spike’s arms shaking. Myka caressed his face—gently, not wanting to hurt him.

Spike brushed her hair back from her face, his smile wider. “The touch of the mate. Heals a man.”

Myka looked him over, from his purple bruises to the red pockmarks on his chest to the bandages wrapped around his arms and stomach. “I’d say you had a long way to go.”

“Then you’d better keep touching me.”

Myka ran her fingers lightly up his chest. “I can do this all night.”

His arm tightened around her again. “That means you’re staying?”

“As long as you want.”

“As my mate?”

The answer was important to him. It was important to her.

Myka thought about her life of loneliness, of reaching out to Jillian and Sharon, looking for the mother she’d lost and the sister she’d never had. How losing Jillian had been losing a part of herself, how she’d been drifting, alone.

Then Spike had caught her in strong arms and drawn her into his world, his family, his community. He had a solid place in it, and now, so would Myka. With him.

“Damn right,” she said.

The next kiss took her breath away. Spike was definitely improving.

After a long, long time, Myka laid her head on Spike’s shoulder, happiness swamping her in sweet waves. “I am sorry about the stables, though,” she said. She sighed, not wanting to think of anything that might pull her from this heavenly bubble. “That place gave me life, and hope. I love training, and I love the horses. I don’t want to give that up.”

“Oh, yeah,” Spike said, as though remembering something. “You won’t have to. I’m buying the stables.”

Myka’s head popped up. “What?”

“You tell the owner you can give him the five-hundred grand. Or figure out how much your other trainers can come up with and I’ll put in the rest. I can’t hand over him myself, being a Shifter, but I’ll give it to you. You pretend you saved your pennies or inherited it, or something.”

“But how . . .” Myka looked wildly around the plain but homey room, the stone fireplace, the lack of ornaments, the old television and the VCR player that had run through all those TV shows. “But Shifters . . .”

“Don’t have anything. I know. Shifter secrets, Myka. But you’re my mate now. You want the stables, you got them.”

Myka stared at Spike a moment longer, then she collapsed against him again. “Wow. I’m going to have to think about all this later. When I can. For now . . .”

Spike drew her close. “What?”

“Keep kissing me. We need to get you well.”

“I can go for that.” Spike’s smile was wicked as he bent to her again.

A furry body squirmed between them, and Jordan woke up with a yowl of fear and confusion. Spike caught him up between his big hands. “It’s okay, little guy. I’m here. You’re home.”

Jordan flailed a little more, blinking sleepily. Then he came fully awake, growled again, and launched himself at Spike. He shifted as he did so, grabbing Spike around the neck and holding on.

Spike closed his eyes and held his son, the relief on his face beautiful.

Myka stoked Jordan’s unruly hair. “How you doing, kid?”

“I was scared!” Jordan looked at her with huge brown eyes. “But I’m okay now. My dad came for me.” Jordan gave Myka a loud, wet kiss on her cheek, gave the same to Spike, and then held on to Spike again. He turned his head on Spike’s broad shoulder and gave Myka a grin, a mirror of his father’s. “My dad’s awesome.”

Jordan’s naming ceremony happened the next night, and Spike decided to announce at the same time that Myka had accepted his mate-claim.