9. Declan

I doeverything I can to focus on practice and not let my mind wander to Miranda. Does she like that I moved her furniture, or did I overstep? Is leaving her tea creepy? I can't help it. Every instinct I have is to take care of her. To protect her. To make her happy. It has been since I was a boy and hated to see her lonely or unhappy, and it's gotten stronger through the years. Shifters throw around the term fated mate to explain how they feel about their partner, but true fated-in-the-stars meant-to-be mates are extremely rare.

That's not to take away from the deep feelings of love people have for each other. It's a wonderful thing. But having a fated mate goes beyond love. You are destined to be together and if you ignore the dictates of fate, there are consequences. It is wonderful when you are together and torturous when you are apart. That's how it has been for me in the years we've been thousands of miles away from each other. I knew she was more than the girl I had a crush on when I was eighteen and she was sixteen when we saw each other in person again. She was my fated mate. That was it. My heart started pounding. I couldn't form coherent sentences. My wolf was all, She's cute, we like her! I agreed wholeheartedly. Then my unicorn cleared his throat, tapped me on the shoulder, and informed me, She's your mate. She's the one you are fated to be with. There is no one else. There will be no one else for you. If you are not with her, you will be alone. Forever.

Not everyone has a fated mate. People throw the term around like they do saying someone is a friend when all they are is an acquaintance. But it's a real thing that means something. I will never have what I feel for Miranda for someone else. Now that we are finally in the same place, I need to get Miranda to have the same feelings for me as I do for her. Without freaking her out and scaring her away.

Non-shifters don't feel the same sense of fate shifters do. At least, I don't think they do. I've never discussed it with Miranda. I've been afraid of pushing her too hard, too fast, and losing her altogether. I dream of her, and it feels like we're together. I'm always in my unicorn form, never as a man or as my wolf. We're in the field near the gazebo where we spent much of our time together as children. The daisies and forget-me-nots are blooming. The sun is warm on our skin. As time has passed, we've gotten older in my dreams and it's like being together in real time. We never get to touch or speak but just being together brings me peace. That's our fate bond at work. I don't know if she has the dreams. But the glimpse of what our future could be is what keeps me going.

Since it is a travel day and we aren't playing, we dress in our team-branded gear for our bus ride to the local airport. It's nice not to be flying in a suit. We had a light practice and now we are all showered and dressed, and we are getting on the bus parked across from the pier. I can easily see over the crowd and am looking for Miranda. I'm hoping we can sit together on the bus and on the plane.

Did something happen, and she's not traveling with us after all? My wolf stirs. If I were shifted, he'd be pacing. But I'm me and I need to keep my cool. This is her second day here. I don't want to make her the center of attention because I can't control myself. Yes, I'm a shifter and I have that side to me, but above all, I am a man and in control of myself at all times. No longer am I the boy in the throes of puberty learning how to deal with changes, not only to my human body, but also to the two other creatures who are part of and growing with me. Sometimes arguing with each other and making me be the swing vote like a chaotic tribal council on Survivor. I'm past that.

I don't see Daphne either. Maybe that's a good thing? They are together and we wouldn't leave Daphne behind.

"They're already on the bus," a voice says from over my shoulder. Glancing back, I see Logan.

My cheeks heat. I didn't realize I had been so obvious.

"Dude, I'm an eagle shifter. I'm observant," he murmurs.

I follow my teammates onto the bus, ducking my head out of habit. My eyes automatically find Miranda sitting with Daphne in the third row behind the driver. The seat across the row from her is open. It's next to Colby Alvarez, a capybara shifter from Texas and our fourth-string left wing. I like Colby. He's quiet, but he always has cookies or cupcakes from the Half-Cocked Bake Shop. It's hard not to like a guy with a bakery box. It's Carter and Brick between me and my goal. They'd understand getting mowed down. If there was enough room, I'd climb from seat to seat and avoid the aisle completely, but the seats are full and I'm too tall to maneuver like that.

Miranda looks up and the smile breaking across her face when she sees me has my hand uncontrollably reaching up to rub my chest over the heart that has kicked up in rhythm. When he sees Miranda's smile, Carter looks back at me with a smirk and prepares to sit down next to Alvarez. He never sits with Alvarez. Carter is always in the back of the bus, never up front. In a flash, Miranda tosses her purse in the seat, startling Alvarez into choking on cookie crumbs.

"Sorry Trev, Alvarez is saving that seat for Declan," she says with the sweetest, fakest smile I've ever seen on her lips. Still sputtering, Alvarez nods. He's my favorite teammate.

"You can't save seats. That's not fair," Carter protests.

"You know that's bullshit. You save a seat for Stone whenever he has a new game downloaded you want to play," Brick says from right in front of me. Shoving Carter past the empty seat, she turns back to give me a wink. She's my favorite teammate too.

I hand Miranda her purse and sit next to Alvarez. His dark brown eyes are twinkling as he tilts his cookie bag toward me.

"Thanks." I grab a peanut butter chocolate chip.

"You're welcome."

The cookie is huge. I break it in half and reach across the aisle to offer half to Miranda. I know she loves chocolate and peanut butter together.

"Ooh, yeah, thanks." She takes the cookie, breaks her half in two, offers a piece to Daphne, then leans forward to see past me. "Thanks, Alvarez." She turns her smile to me next. "You're spoiling me today, Dec. Rearranging my office, the tea, now a cookie. How are you going to top this?"

Her gray eyes are sparkling, and I sit there, grinning like an idiot, looking at her like a lovesick fool.

Alvarez nudges me as the bus pulls away to start the twenty-minute trip to the airport. I realize Miranda is waiting for an answer to her question.

"I'll think of something," I say. Brilliant. I'm a fricking wordsmith.

"I washed your thermos," Miranda says, nudging her backpack with her foot. "It's packed in there, I'll give it to you when we get to the hotel. Thanks for the tea. It was wonderful."

"You're welcome. Why did you drink the coffee at breakfast? You shuddered each time you took a sip."

Miranda's beautiful face flushes. She leans across the aisle and whispers.

"I didn't want to be rude by saying no. I want them to like me."

Is she truly worried someone is going to dislike her because she turns down a cup of coffee? Her earnest expression and the way she bites her lip, probably in anxiety, says she is.

I reach across and put my hand on her arm. I hear an ooh come from the rear of the bus but ignore it. Miranda glances that way, but I give her arm a light squeeze to call her attention back to me.

"Ignore them," I murmur.

Alvarez talks loudly to Daphne, and Logan joins in, to bury our conversation among the other noise. I'm lucky to have good friends like this.

"You don't have to change who you are to get people to like you," I say. "You're wonderful the way you are. Stone is a good guy. He was teasing me about the tea. It's a joke between us. He doesn't care if you prefer tea or coffee. He was being friendly and wanted you to feel welcome."

She nods and sits back in her seat. I reluctantly remove my hand from her arm. Daphne meets my eyes and gives me a subtle brow raise. She's telling me to cool it. Bedard has started a joke I'm a mind reader, and I play it off. I'm not telepathic, like they think I am, but I am intuitive and pick up on the surrounding vibes. Being this into Miranda and being obvious is going to put a ton of attention on her. I can't do that to her. It's my job to protect her, even from myself.

Alvarez and I spend the rest of the ride talking about the Spokane Sasquatch we will play tomorrow night. Since we play the same position, we share info on what we've noticed in the game films we've studied.

"Their first right wing, Ollie King, is strong on the face-offs. Their best. Great on the power play too," Alvarez says. "We will need to neutralize him."

The bus pulls into the airport and stops near the hangar for our chartered jet. I'm glad we travel in style. I know not all teams have it this good.

We spill out of the bus and walk through the building to cross the tarmac to our jet. Daphne joins us as we walk through the building to cross the tarmac to our jet.

"Ugh, baby brain. You got everything to the jet company with your passport, right Randi? I know it's a domestic flight, but since you're Irish and this is the first flight you're on, I want to make sure you're clear to fly."

"I have dual citizenship," Miranda says, "and fly on a US passport. I'm good."

"You are?" I ask.

"Yeah, my father is American, but lived in Ireland long enough to pick up the accent. When he's in the US, he sounds like he's from wherever he is. Boston, Chicago, Kentucky, you'd swear he was a native. He probably has a North Jersey accent now."

"I never knew that," I said. "I didn't have a reason to, I guess, but I always assumed he was Irish."

"Do you consider yourself American?" Daphne asks.

Miranda shrugs. "Not really. Ireland with Dec's family is the closest thing I've ever had to a home, and I'm Irish because I was born there. But honestly, I'm homeless. I bloom the best I can wherever I'm planted, but I don't have roots." Under her breath, she adds, "At least not yet."

I know she didn't intend for me to hear that, but thanks to shifter hearing, I did. My throat tightens and my eyes sting, knowing she considers the time we were together as children as she does, but also feeling she no longer has it. Every ounce of restraint in my body is being spent not wrapping Miranda in my arms and assuring her wherever I am in this world, she has a home with me. She's not ready to hear it, no matter how ready I am to say it.

As we climb the steps into the jet, I realize I miscalculated. Miranda's perky ass is at my eye level and my wolf is ready to howl. My focus has been on her being here and seeing her again, and I've ignored how freaking beautiful she is. Okay, not ignored. I'm not blind, but I haven't allowed myself to think about it. But now it's right in my face and impossible to ignore. I'm so distracted I stumble on the top step and face plant right into Miranda's fine ass.

"Oh," she cries out as she stumbles forward.

I grab her hips to hold her steady, but that unfortunately propels me against her more. This is bad. I let go, and she moves forward into the jet and turns back to look at me. She's blushing and my teammates behind me are hooting and hollering.

"Yeah, missed a step," I say. "Sorry."

Regaining my footing, I stand to my full height and look down the line of teammates behind me on the stairs. It would be easy to give Carter a shove in his smug face and send them all falling backwards like dominos. Lucky for all of us, I have a strong rein on my temper and a steely eyed glare that shuts everyone up.

I am mortified. My wolf is embarrassed. If I was in wolf form, I'd be on the floor with my paws covering my muzzle in shame. My unicorn is probably pretending he doesn't know me. Hell, I think I embarrassed my ancestors and future children, too. Of course, telling the grandkids about the time I head-butted their gran in the ass could be a fun story. I let a grin spread across my face, imagining it as I board the plane.

Stella, the chief flight attendant, gives me a warm smile.

"Declan, are you okay?" She lays a hand on my arm and squeezes gently out of concern. "Do you need ice for your knee or anything?"

I move to the side to let the rest of the team on the plane.

"I'm okay, Stella, thank you. Pride hurt more than anything."

"Well, if you need anything, anything at all, let me know." She gives my arm a squeeze one more time before removing her hand.

"My usual tea once we're underway is perfect. Miranda may want some too. Did you meet her? She's Coach's new assistant."

"Yes, I did. I'll be by with your tea."

Miranda is sitting with Brick, Logan, and Daphne in a set of four seats clustered together around a table. I take a seat next to Stone in the next cluster and am back-to-back with Miranda.

Stone nudges my arm. "Anything you want, Mac. I can't believe you haven't taken her up on it yet."

My cheeks burn while I shoot Stone a glare and jerk my head toward Miranda behind me. His eyes widen and he mouths "sorry" to me. I want to smack the smirks Carter and Bedard are aiming at me from the seats across from us.

From behind me, I hear Brick say, "They have blankets and pillows if you want to sleep."

"Thanks. I don't sleep when I travel," Miranda says.

"Oh no, do you get motion sickness?" Daphne asks. She's sounding maternal already.

"No, not at all. I need to stay alert."

"Why, no one is going to steal your stuff here," Brick says.

Miranda laughs. "That's not the reason. Funny story. When I was twelve, I was flying to America with my parents. It was my first time coming here and I think we were coming from Portugal?" She pauses. "Yeah, that was when they pulled me from the German school in Lisbon. They had two seats together in first class and I was back in coach."

"You didn't sit together?" Daphne asks.

"No, I was twelve." She says, like it makes sense. "First class would have been wasted on me. I had a window seat, and I was comfortable. I slept most of the flight, anyway. There was a layover in Philadelphia or Baltimore. Somewhere like that. We were to get off and take a flight to Chicago or Minnesota. I forget. I slept through the layover and stayed on the flight and ended up going to Los Angeles." She laughs like it's hilarious.

"Wait," Brick says. "Where were your parents?"

"They got on the next flight. They were used to traveling as a couple, they forgot I was with them."

"They had to go through customs," Logan says. "How do you not realize part of your group, your child, isn't with you?"

"I was twelve. I've gone through customs before. I knew what to do."

She says it matter-of-factly, like it's not a big deal.

"What happened when your parents realized what happened? Did they freak out?" Daphne asks.

I sneak a peek through the seats. As expected, Daphne's eyes are wide, and her hands rest on her baby bump. I bet she's thinking she'd never forget her child on a plane. I know she won't. She's going to be a wonderful mother.

"Probably not. The crew on my flight radioed the crew on theirs. They worked it out when I landed in L.A., I'd catch a flight to…" She scrunches her face in concentration, ticking off a mental list on her finger. "It was Minneapolis…and the school would pick me up. They went to their place in Florida. I was going to my next school. It wasn't a big deal."

Stone undoes his seat belt and kneels on his seat to look over the back of his seat and join in the conversation.

"You're a twelve-year-old girl. In a foreign country, separated from your parents, and they aren't walking back to coach and waking you up? They can forget their child is traveling with them and don't realize it until the flight crew reminds them? They arrange for you to fly back across the country by yourself and get picked up by strangers while they go off on their merry way? What the actual fuck? That can't be true."

Stella delivers my tea. I give a tense nod of thanks.

"Bring him a whisky, neat," Bedard says.

"I'm not lying. It happened." I can hear the insistence in her voice—she's getting upset and I can't stand it. "It wasn't a big deal. I was twelve, not a baby."

"What's rumbling?" she asks nervously. "The plane engine?"

"No, it's Mac growling." Bedard says.

"What? Why?" Miranda leans out of her seat and reaches back to lay her hand on my arm.

"Declan, are you okay? Do you not like flying?" Her touch is soothing. Her thumb is rubbing up and down my arm. Her hand is warm. My wolf is calming down.

"Flying is fine. I want to kill your parents."

Stella comes back with my whisky. I down it in one go. It's not as good as my family's, but good enough. Her eyes flick to Miranda's hand on my arm and back to my face.

"Would you like another?" she asks.

I shake my head. I can't drink enough to get drunk, anyway. She gets everyone else's drink requests and goes back to the galley.

Miranda pulls her hand away, and I miss the heat and contact immediately.

"Don't be like that," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "They were busy. Everything worked out."

It's on the tip of my tongue to tell her I'm never too busy for her. I would never leave her behind. But she's not ready to hear that, no matter how much I want to say it. I'll add it to the list of things I can't say to her. Yet.