“What’s the claiming?” Rachel asked.
I winced, hating that we’d kept her in the dark about our kind.
“When a male wolf, or two wolves in our species’ case, find their true mate, they bite her to permanently embed their scent and mark her as theirs.” Cord’s gaze on Rachel heated. “You’re our true mate. That’s how we knew we wanted you so quickly, and then realized we were scent matches and meant to share you.”
“Oh.” Rachel’s eyes were wide. Her face flushed a pretty shade of pink.
I knew the feelings Harlan spoke of. The need for Rachel, the craving to claim her. Cord had been forced to stop me the other night, the desperation to mark her had been so powerful. I’d do anything to get my scent in her, and I wasn’t moon mad.
“I’m sorry, go on,” Rachel said to Harlan.
“We couldn’t wait to claim—” Harlan began.
I grunted and arched my back as another bullet came to the surface and was expelled. Waving my hand, I got him to continue.
“The moon was full. There were bonfires, and everything was festive. We didn’t wait a single night to claim Cathryn. We went to my place…” Harlan broke off like he didn’t want to go on.
My stomach churned. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. One minute, we were pleasuring our she-wolf, the next, I’d turned savage trying to claim her. To this day, I don’t remember those minutes that passed between me sinking my teeth into her flesh—and finding myself in wolf form with the two of them bloodied and cornered in my room.”
“Moon madness can come on in spurts in the beginning,” Cord said. He glanced at Rachel to explain. “It’s what happens if a dominant wolf meets his true mate but doesn’t claim her—or, in cases of alpha wolves, if he doesn’t find his true mate by his mid-thirties. His wolf goes mad, and he turns feral. It’s where the human lore about werewolves originates.”
Rachel’s eyes grew even larger. “Oh.”
I squeezed her hand to reassure her. “You’re safe. We’d never let anything like that happen to you.”
“I figured I’d gone moon mad, and ran as far away from civilization as I could. But then,” Harlan’s throat worked and he blinked rapidly, “then I recovered. I guess claiming Cathryn cured me. Only it was too late. I’d hurt her and Noble—badly. They were afraid. When the alpha tried to bring me back to the pack, they objected, strongly. They refused to believe I was safe, and left the pack.”
I stared at Harlan, shaken to my core by his story. It was almost worse to hear he’d been innocent, betrayed by biology, than to believe he was guilty. Because the difference between the two of us had just lessened. My wolf had been overly aggressive with Rachel, growing increasingly more frantic as the days went by without my marking her. My fear of harming Rachel was legitimate.
As if Cord read my mind, he said, “You’ve shown no signs of moon madness, Nash. Just the strong desire to claim your true mate, same as I feel.”
I gave him a bleak stare. “My aggression…” I choked.
“You’ll keep it in check. We can handle it.”
“The sooner you two claim your mate, the better,” Harlan advised.
Nash and I both shot him an irritated look.
“Rachel just found out what we are a half hour ago,” Cord said drily. “We’ll give her all the time she needs.”
“I don’t need time,” Rachel spoke quietly beside me.
My hand tightened in hers. “Wolves mate for life,” I warned. “This is a lifetime commitment. It’s more than a marriage certificate. And we know you’re still trying to find yourself.”
“You both need to claim me, or you could die. There’s nothing to consider,” she said fiercely, showing that same backbone I’d seen when she stood up to her father. “Besides… I think I have found myself. It’s here in West Springs. It’s being with you two.”
My wolf circled with joy, but I still had a sense of dread. What if I hurt her like Harlan had hurt my mother? I turned my attention back to him. “So what happened in Montana?” I needed to know the entire story.
“After a year had passed and they still hadn’t returned to West Springs, I decided to go visit the Wolf Ranch pack, and talk to Cathryn’s parents. I didn’t know where Noble and Cathryn had gone, but I wanted to try to put my family back together,” Harlan said. He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I should have contacted their alpha first to ask permission, but of course, I was afraid it wouldn’t be given. No one here trusted me, it made sense no one there would believe my story, either. I didn’t know my showing up would spook them so badly. When I pulled up at Cathryn’s parents’ house, Cathryn and Noble bolted for their car. I followed. I just wanted a chance to talk to them. To explain how devastated I was, and that I would never harm them again. But they were scared of me.” He rubbed his mouth, and his hand shook as he lowered it.