“Where are you going?”

“Home. I’m going to my condo. I need to think. Please.”

“Let me drive you.”

“No. I’m not that far, I’ll catch a cab out front. I know the number here, I’ll call you.

Just give me some space.”

“Space? Layla, you’re my mate. The claiming has been made. This isn’t something you can think away.”

“Look,” she struggled to speak without her voice breaking as her world crashed in around her. “I have plans! I can’t think here with you…with your scent and your taste in my mouth. It’s too much and I have to work this out. On my own.” She looked up into his eyes. “Please.”

His face softened and he pushed a tendril of her hair out of her face. “Wait,” he ordered, and grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and shoved it at her. “Give me your address and your phone number. I’ll give you until Sunday. You’ll need the tri-bond. The longer you wait, the more dangerous it becomes. For both of us.”

Sighing, she took the paper and wrote the info down. “I’m in Queen Anne, just like two miles away.”

“I’m a very patient man, Layla, but even I have limits. Neither of us was expecting more than a brief thing, I know that. But you can’t fight biology and if you look into yourself, you’ll find you don’t want to. I’m a good man. I don’t want to control you, I want to share my life with you.”

Kissing her softly, he stepped away from the door to let her go. She felt how difficult it was for him and before she could stop herself she reached out and caressed his face. “Thank you.”

Quickly, before she could change her mind, she left and headed home.

* * * * *

And ended up feeling like shit all day as she didn’t answer her phone and tried to think. But she couldn’t think about anything other than Sid. The way he felt against her, the way his mouth felt on her, the way his c**k filled her. More than the sex, she wanted to smell him, to be with him, to know him. And even though she’d showered off the scent of their sex, the claiming and their bond changed her essential scent subtly and each time she breathed in she was reminded of him.

Damn it! She didn’t want to be subsumed into someone else’s life. Okay, so she didn’t want to want it. But now that she’d been with Sid, she wanted him in her life.

After a day of pacing and reaching to call the Alexis about a thousand times, she drove to Ballard and showed up on Tia’s doorstep.

“Whoa! What happened to you last night?” Tia grinned and let Layla into her house. “You’re not the one-night-stand type and oh f**k…” Tia’s grin fell away and her eyes widened as she scented the bond.

“Yes. Oh god, Tia. What am I going to do?” Layla tossed herself onto the couch.

“What do you mean? Did he treat you badly? That f**ker, I’m going to track him down and rip out his throat!”

Layla stopped her whining and looked at her best friend and started to laugh. “No!

He’s…he’s great. Sweet, really good in bed, funny. He’s good with the bond. He’s happy about it even.”

“Wait, you’re bitching because of what, then?”

“Tia, I have plans! They don’t include being mated to a painter! I need to mate with a stockbroker. We’ll have two children and live in Maple Leaf or Ravenna. In like, five years.” Even as she said it she knew she didn’t mean it, never had, really.

Tia snorted and rolled her eyes. “Layla, those plans are not you. You think they’re you because that’s your own way of being different from the other Wardens. I’ve known you since we were nine years old. You’re only button-down on the outside. Not that stockbrokers can’t be hot, but your mate isn’t one. God, some wolves wait twenty years past maturation to find a mate and you find one at twenty-five and you’re complaining? He’s hot! And he’s good with the bond? And anyway, how did you get away? ’Cause it’s hard for me to see a werewolf male just letting you walk away. And oh my, the tri-bond?”

The tri-bond was a ritual whereby a third wolf, a relation of the male mate, or a Packmate who ranked higher than he did, formed a bond with the female. It created what was termed as an anchor bond for two important reasons. To keep the female from losing herself in the emotional and hormonal surge of the claiming and also to keep her alive should something happen to her mate. The bond between mates was so strong that should something happen to the male, without the tri-bond, the female would die too. It was sort of a stabilizing connection. Like a surge protector, her brother Cade always said.

Layla let her head fall back against the couch cushions with a groan. “I know! Look, I’m not saying a threesome with two hot dudes is a bad idea in general. But I just met Sid and now I’m going to have to have sex with one of his relatives or something? Ugh!

Adam? No, no, no! I can’t have sex with someone you’ve had sex with.”

“Okay, so I get the point about Adam. But you know you need the tri-bond to anchor you. You know that. It’s not random sex, the anchor is a necessary thing. Without him you’ll slip into insanity and that’s no joke. The longer you wait, the worse it’ll get.”

“Why now? God, Tia, I just got this promotion and my life is going so well. This just complicates everything!”

“Oh shut up!” Tia got in her face. “You are not this person. Stop whining. Accept reality. He’s your mate. Period. And you need the tri-bond or you’ll both be in trouble because once you go, he’ll lose it too. And for what? This stupid, selfish tantrum?”