Page 82 of Stubborn as a Shadow

“Uh… Nelson?”

“Hmm?” He pressed his lips to my temple and stroked my back.

“What just happened? Do we need an exorcist? I didn’t even know that was a thing outside of horror movies, but…”I shrugged, and although we were still wrapped around one another, I thought he must have felt it.

Nelson’s hand stilled. There was a long pause.

“You know how we talked about what could happen? About mating?” He pulled back a little so he could look at my face.

“Holy crap! You have…” I reached up to thread my fingers through his hair. “Your hair… No, that can’t be right…”

“I have a lock of rainbow-colored hair by my temple, don’t I?”

“Where did that come from?” I swore it hadn’t been there before. I’d been staring at Nelson for days. I couldn’t have missed something like that.

He shook his head and reached for the same spot in my hair. “I know, because you have the same thing right here.”

I patted my hair, but it didn’t feel any different. I hopped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Sunlight was streaming in through the window so I could see my reflection clearly in the mirror.

“What is going on?” I poked at a bit of hair that was, miraculously, very, very different from the rest of my light brown hair. It still had a rainbow-colored sheen, but it was black as midnight on a new moon in winter.

Nelson stepped up behind me. He wore a blanket around his shoulders like a shawl, and he wrapped his arms around me, cloaking me in the blanket too. I hadn’t even noticed the cold air on my skin in my mad dash to the bathroom.

I stared at our reflections in the mirror.

“What is it?” I pulled at the strange bit of hair.

Nelson tightened his arms around me and pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. Then he met my gaze in the mirror. Shit. This was going to be bad, wasn’t it? Had we been cursed? Would that be better than being possessed?

“I hope you were telling the truth before, that you were okay with maybe being my mate, because it turns out we are. Mates,that is. That lock of hair is a visible sign we’re fated mates, and that we’re tied together now.”

“That’s…”

Nelson’s body tensed behind me, but I didn’t know why, because this was epic. Little joy bubbles fluttered through me. I felt like I’d just downed ten Dr. Peppers.

“So fabulously cool,” I said. I bounced a little within the confines of his embrace. “I know we talked about it, but I didn’t know something like that would happen. That whole magical mumbling thing was wild. And now the hair thing?”

“Is that okay?”

My eyebrows shot up. How could he not know how amazingly fantastic I found this? “You’re really mine. My fated mate.” I rather liked the sound of that. “This is better than I could have imagined.”

Nelson bit his lip and nodded. “So it doesn’t bother you?”

“No way. This is amazing. I mean, us together? We’re amazing.” I pointed at the strange bit of hair. “And this? Perfect. But are you sure?”

“Several of my… Uh.” He cleared his throat. “Several people in Willow Lake have recently found their mates. They talked about it. The strange words. The magic in the air, encircling them, like when we were together. The marks show up after the bond is complete.”

“Wow…” I touched the lock of hair again. The colors were the bright colors of a rainbow in a children’s cartoon. But there was also a richness, a darkness to that patch of hair that stood out as unique and different from the rest of my hair. Was that because of Nelson’s shadow magic? I twisted around to look more closely at his hair. “Your hair was black before. So I can’t tell if your hair really matches mine.”

“It does…”

“But how can you tell? It just looks like your hair was dipped in a rainbow.”

“It’s perfect, because everyone will see I am yours.”

I blinked at him. “Holy starlight! You’re mine!”

He smiled. “I am.”