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if he did, even without the bond. He’d scent it, or see it in the way Bae held himself. Lying to a shifter was rarely successful.
    “Yes,” Bae admitted, and Isaiah closed his eyes and started to turn away. “No, wait.”
    Bae caught Isaiah’s elbow and turned him back around. “Look at me.” Isaiah did and Bae opened his mind to his mate the best he knew how—he wasn’t all that knowledgeable, though, having just found his mate last night. “Isaiah, I wouldn’t give you up for anything.
    Mates just don’t do that. But, I told you we’re extinct in South Korea, and I meant us, Amur shifters, not just the leopards.” Bae bit back another sigh and picked up his coffee cup with his free hand. He gulped the contents down, fuck the heat of it, and it felt like his throat was singed. He needed to chase the fog out of his brain.
    “Can you sit for a minute?” he asked. A quick check of the time told him it was seven.
    He had a little bit before he needed to be on the road.
    Isaiah sat, naked and glorious at the kitchen table. He was so enticing that Bae considered jumping him then and there, but he remembered the way Isaiah had shut down, was still shut down. A fuck wasn’t worth that. Bae refilled his mug and carried the pot to the table, where he set the carafe down. Isaiah sipped his coffee, eyes not quite meeting Bae’s.
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    ISAIAH
    Bailey Bradford
    46

    “Isaiah.” He waited for Isaiah to look at him, then smiled gently and held out his hand on the table. Isaiah took it immediately, which eased some of the tension knotted in Bae’s chest. “My family’s views are not my own. Surely you don’t agree with everything your family does.”
    “I do, pretty much,” Isaiah said, looking almost embarrassed about it. “But my family will love you. They would never begrudge me the kind of happiness the other mated couples have.”
    Bae drank half his cup of coffee and refilled it. “Unfortunately, my family is extremely concerned with our species. Although some have found mates outside of the Amur, they have still, uh, contributed to the gene pool, as it were.”
    Isaiah frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”
    “Nothing good in my opinion.” Bae fidgeted, but there was really no way to talk about his family’s rules without making them sound awful. They weren’t, not totally—but they were over this one thing.
    “Bae, what does that mean?” Isaiah asked again, this time sounding angry.
    Bae shook his head. “They insist every fertile person contribute.” Isaiah started to speak but Bae held up his free hand. “Wait. Just listen, okay? They aren’t monsters, just…it’s very hard for our females to get pregnant, so once they’re adults, they’re encouraged to be promiscuous within our species. Sometimes males are brought in from other lepes.
    Sometimes our males are sent to others, to…to do their part.” He inhaled, exhaled, trying to calm himself, because now their mind link was open and he could feel Isaiah’s fury throbbing like a hammered thumb. “They don’t force anyone—”
    “They do.” Isaiah’s tone made it clear he was inflexible on his opinion. “They make every fertile male and female reproduce, that’s what you’re saying. Whether they want to or not.”
    “It isn’t like that,” Bae protested, but in a way it was, so he stopped and tried to compose his thoughts before he spoke again. “We’re raised up knowing it’s our responsibility, our job, to help keep our species alive. It’s always been done, the…the contribution, before one found their mate. But I fought against it, stalled, because I can’t very well fuck a woman! I just can’t. And now that I’ve found you, I really, really can’t. Mates www.total-e-bound.com

    ISAIAH
    Bailey Bradford
    47

    don’t have sex with anyone else. It’s not possible, I think, so my family is going to be very upset.”
    Isaiah stood, keeping his hand in Bae’s as he moved to stand beside him.