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“Count on it, sweetness.” Hooking his foot around the leg of my chair, he slid it a few inches until my side was pressed against his. “All it took was one taste for me to be addicted.”
“Lucky me.” I wagged my brows at him and giggled.
He brushed his thumb across my curved lips. “Fuck, I love the sound of you laughing.”
“It’s because of you that I am.” I gave him a quick kiss. “I haven’t had much to laugh about for two years.”
His brows drew together, and he lifted me onto his lap. “I hate that for you.”
“I’m not going to lie; it was rough being away from my parents and everything I know.” Twining my arms around his neck, I wiggled on his lap, feeling a feminine thrill as he hardened beneath me. “But if we hadn’t split up to get away from those guys, then I never would’ve found you.”
“What guys?” he growled, his hands gripping my hips.
I bit my bottom lip, my stomach sinking as I started to wonder if we should have had this talk before I had chosen him as my mate. It probably hadn’t been fair of me to toss Aaron into a lifelong commitment without knowing exactly what he was getting into.
Before I could start to explain, he tugged my lip free. “Whatever is putting that scared look in your pretty eyes, we’ll tackle it together, sweetness. You’re the miracle I never even knew to pray for. Nobody is ever gonna take you away from me.”
His declaration eased my concerns, so I beamed an appreciative smile at him and nodded. “Being able to choose my own mate turned out great for me, but the whole horn with healing powers part…not so much. My mom taught me to be very careful about when and where I use it, and especially with whom. As much as I wish I could go around saving everyone I meet who needs it, my ability just doesn’t work that way. There is a limit on how many people I can help during my lifetime, and I have to always keep that in mind.”
Stroking his hand down my back, he asked, “How does it work?”
“My horn only heals people if it’s given freely. My powers cannot be stolen, although nobody seems to ever believe that.” I sighed, shaking my head. “If they understood the truth, I wouldn’t have to worry as much.”
“But you don’t actually give them your unicorn’s horn, right? That’s just a figure of speech?” He gently traced his fingers over the middle of my forehead, a worried gleam in his dark eyes.
“I do give them a small portion of my horn.” At his shocked expression, I hurried to explain, “It doesn’t hurt me, but in order to make the tincture that heals someone, I have to shave off some of my horn and make a powder from it.”
“And that doesn’t cause even the tiniest bit of pain?” he growled, his wolf swirling in his eyes.
“None,” I reassured him, brushing my lips against his.
My small kiss wasn’t enough for my mate, and he wrapped my hair around his fist to hold my head in place while he captured my mouth. My lips parted on a gasp, and he thrust his tongue between them to tangle his tongue with mine.
I would have happily stayed like that, spending the morning kissing each other with me on his lap. So I let out a whimper of protest when he finally pulled his mouth away.
“I promise you’ll get all the kisses you want, sweetness. But first, we need to finish this conversation. Before you make me forget there’s a world outside the two of us.”
Butterflies swirled in my belly at his words, and I grinned at him. “I like the sound of that. We’re a newly mated couple, so I don’t think anyone would be surprised if we hole up in here for as long as our supplies last.”
“Which won’t be for very long since we already went through all of the food in your cooler, and I had planned to go to the store yesterday.” He captured my mouth in a quick kiss. “Before you provided the perfect distraction.”
“Ugh, yeah…I guess we’ll have to go out sooner than later,” I conceded with a sigh.
“But I need to know if I need to be on the lookout for these guys when we go. What can you tell me about them?” he asked.
“I don’t know much except for the few things my dad managed to find out before we ran.” A shiver raced down my spine, and Aaron rubbed his hands up and down my arms to comfort me. “My mom healed someone about a week before everything happened. A young boy who had fallen through the ice when he went out on a pond that hadn’t frozen all the way through. We didn’t know his family, but she couldn’t bear to see someone so young lose their life in a senseless accident like that. Not when she could do something about it. My dad scoped out the hospital and thought we’d be safe if she brought him the tincture in the middle of the night, after visiting hours.”
When I paused, he murmured, “I’m guessing that didn’t turn out to be the case?”
“Someone had to have seen her because they knew what she looked like and were searching for her only days later.” I squeezed my eyes shut as memories flooded my mind. “The news reports of his miraculous recovery never mentioned what she did, so they thought we were in the clear. But one of my dad’s coworkers showed up on our doorstep the morning we left. He was a leopard shifter too and never questioned why we weren’t part of a pack because most of their kind prefer a solitary existence, with the exception of family.”
“He heard they were looking for your mom?” Aaron prodded.
“Yeah.” Opening my eyes, I nodded. “He came to warn my dad. Told him that he’d thrown them off our trail, but he wasn’t sure if that would be enough to keep us safe. So we left. And I’ve been on my own ever since.”
“You have me now. You’ll never be alone again, sweetness.”
Clutching at his shoulders, I cried, “But what if they track me here somehow?”
