NOTE: /blah blah blah/ =SPEAKING IN TIGER FORM.

NON PALPABLE MATE:
CH9 ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

/You can/-I started to demanded in my shock, before I stopped and transformed back into my human form mid-sentence-"understand me?!" I finished, careful to make sure that I covered myself.

Cam looked at me with furrowed brows, at this moment unable to quite comprehend what he just saw. He gave his head a little shake, and his brows raised instead of going level. "Of course I can hear you!" he said in a tone that said that was a stupid question.

For all I knew in this moment, maybe it was. "Yeah. But humans can't understand us when we're in our animal form!" I protested for an unknown reason.

"Well, clearly that fact's wrong." Cam stated.

"Clearly," I muttered to myself, bowing my head in thought. How was this possible? Jack couldn't understand me, neither could Daniel, so how could Cam? And then it clicked, clicked so harshly that my head jerked back up and I looked at Cam with widened eyes. Grey said that we were mated, that must be why he could understand me when the others couldn't.

"What?" Cam asked, realizing that something must have occurred to me, something that my heart dreaded to tell him. "What is it?"

I bit my lip and bowed my head, hiding my pained expression from his blue gaze. I squeezed my own eyes shut tight. Now was the time to tell him, here was an opening. No matter that all my nerves were against it, he deserved to know. He deserved to make the choice himself. I sighed, almost whimpered. "There's something that I need to tell you, Cam-something that I've been meaning to tell you for a while now." I looked up at him, pain shinning through my eyes.

He looked back at me, taking in that pain. He leaned forward in concern for me and it broke my heart. "You're not dying, are you?!" he demanded.

I scoffed, that idea was so absurd! If only, I whispered to myself. I shook my head. "No. That's not it at all."

Cam let out a breath of relief at the news, and leaned back against the tree behind him. "You had me going there for a sec, Nick." he chuckled.

I smiled softly at him for a moment, before it left my lips limp. I couldn't seem to do it, the will for it had never been in me in the first place. I bowed my head once more.

"Nick?" Cam asked, and the concern in his voice was as clear as day. "Talk to me." he shuffled from the tree and closer to me, either not noticing or caring about the fact that I was naked. He reached out a hand to me, and I let him touch my shoulder against my better judgement. Cam's touch was so much more powerful than Jack's, more potent, it struck me to my core instantly. And I had to look up at him, I had to see his face one last time full of kindness. "If you don't, than I'm going to keep on the belief that you're dying." he told me simply.

"I lied to you!" I blurted. The guilt inside of me was to great, my shame to much to stay inside any longer. It cut me deep when he took his hand back.

"What?"

I swallowed, and looked at him. There was no taking it back now. "The morning after the Itre, I lied to you. You weren't in my room because you were drunk and I wanted to keep an eye on you. You were in my room because... because, well," I stole myself, "we had sex that night." I held my breath, afraid to look away and afraid to keep looking.

Cam looked back at me with glazed eyes, his nostrils flaring as he breathed deeply. For a long while he didn't say anything, and then he suddenly shook his head, and when he looked at me again it was with clear eyes. The emotions on his face were muted, deeply controlled. I held my breath as I waited for what I knew was to come.

"Nick!" he actually chuckled.

I looked at him confused; maybe he hadn't heard me right the first time. I wasn't sure what to do. Should I say it against, or leave it as just a weird misunderstanding. I knew that it had to be the former, I would be even more of a Monster if I did the latter. I opened my mouth, but he shook his head again, and stopped chuckling, saying my name.

He groaned, then, and scrubbed his face with his hands. "I wasn't sure when the time would come." he muttered to himself. "I guess it's now."

Now I was the one to look lost.

He looked at me. "I know." he said.

"Uhh..." I was confused, "What do you 'know'?"

He looked at me as if it was supposed to be obvious, and I'm sure that any other time it would be, but not tonight, not now. He was going to have to say it, and I could tell that he hated that fact.

He groaned again, but this time not in pain, and instead frustration and maybe embarrassment. He scrubbed a hand through his short, light brown hair-maybe a similar colour to what Jack's would have been when he was younger. "I realized what had really happened not long after I left your room, maybe I should have realized it sooner. I don't think that I ever stripped when I was drunk before," it sounded like he said that last part to himself.

But I still looked at him, my lips parted in my shocked state. He'd know as long as I had, I found this fact very interesting-so much so that it helped me get over the shock of it all. "And you're still here?" I asked in amazement.

Cam looked at me in bewilderment, as if the question was a stupid one; to me, it wasn't. "Why wouldn't I be?"

I looked from his blue eyes at that, now I was embarrassed. "Because I'm disgusting," I whispered.

Cam had leaned forward to hear, but then he sat back in shock. "Who in the hell put that idea in your head?!" he growled.

I looked up at him with widened eyes. "People can't put in your head what you already know."

His eyes burned as he looked at me, and I could tell that he was pissed-what amazed me was the fact that I knew that it wasn't directed towards me, but all my life's tormentors. My heart lightened and beat faster at the gesture.

"So, you aren't grossed-out by what happened?" I had to asked.

"Are you kidding!" he scoffed. "I may be a military man, Nick, but I'm no prude. I'm all for same-sex romance, even though I don't partake in the motion myself."

"But you did with me." I reminded him, my voice hoarse.

"Right." he nodded. "Well, that doesn't seemed to have messed with my head that much. I'm wasn't against it. What about you?"

"I was a virgin." I gasped.

Cam's brows shot up his forehead. "You mean, a virgin sleeping with another guy, right?"

My lips tightened and I shook me head. "I'd never had sex before I found out that I was Quatonian, and afterward, I swore to myself that I would never sleep with anyone, human or otherwise."

"Nick..." Cam huffed, looking at me. "You can't swear off nature at its core."

I scoffed. "I guess you're right, seeing as this happened."

"Is this not going to work any more, our friendship?" he asked suddenly, flicking a finger between us.

"I don't want it to, but even that is out of our control."

"What-wait! Earlier you said something about why I can understand you in your tiger form."

This, now, I dreaded more than telling Cam that we had sex. Before, it was just a drunken mistake. But, this, this, was nowhere in our realm. I took a deep breath. "I spoke with Grey, and he said that we're mated."

"I'm sorry, we're what?!" he demanded.

I couldn't help the wince. "Mated."

"Mated? As in Soul Mates?"

I nodded with glued lips.

"Well... what the hell does that mean?!"

I shrugged.

"A shrug? That's all you got?!"

I nodded.

He scoffed at me in derision. "Very helpful, King."

"Well, what am I supposed to do about it!" I finally broke my silence in protest; how come I had to have all the answers? Of course! He just said it, didn't he? KING! Some times I hated that title.

"Sorry," Cam's shoulders slumped and he took in a deep breath and let it out. "But how is this even possible? We're not even the same species?"

I felt the hurt of him pointing it out that we weren't the same, but I couldn't hold it against him when I'd done the same thing. "I asked the same thing of Grey, and it's actually not that unheard of."

"Really?"

I nodded. "My Uncle had mated with a human girl back when."

"Well, that doesn't change the fact of what does this mean?"

"It doesn't have to mean anything," I told him, despite that I wanted it to mean everything. "You said us sleeping together didn't change anything, so why does this?"

He was quiet for a long while as he seemed to think about it. I kept my gaze trained at the center of his brows even as I felt his piercing through the dark gloom and burn along my flesh as I felt his eyes roam my naked skin. I held back that shudder of breath that wanted to escape me, and held perfectly still. And, then, when I was very near my breaking point in wanting to jump him, he looked back into my eyes.

"I think it does mean something," he corrected me, his voice low. "Everyplace I intended to go, I'd always end up finding you instead. I thought it was weird, that I was going crazy, like every corner I turned, you were there. Like I was drawn towards you by some unforeseen force. One that I even tried to escape, by saying yes to a dinner proposal from Laren. Every time I was with you, I couldn't help but reach out and touch you, it was like I would die if I didn't." he confessed.

I chuckled in relief. "I thought it was only me," I confessed back. "And when you told me about your dinner plans with Laren, I couldn't help but feel jealous that she was the attention of your affection."

He looked back at me. "I does change everything, I don't think that this is something that can just be ignored." he inched towards me. "God, you're so close to me, and it's killing me not to reach out and touch you." he whispered.

My eyes danced across his face to his lips before going back to his eyes. "So, then, do it." I whispered back. It was killing me as much as it was him.

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