Rejected Mate (Feral Shifters 1)

By the time I reach his booth, my heart’s ready to give out. But I clench my jaw and slide onto the bench across from him, ready to stare him down with enough heat to melt his insides.

Kian drops the top of his menu and peers at me, his expression stoic and unreadable. I hate it. I hate the way he looks at me like he doesn’t even know me. So impassively, like I mean nothing to him after what we shared.

I just have to remind myself he means nothing to me either. My only goal from the moment I left home was to track him down and stop him. There’s nothing else for me here, and there never has been.

At least the strong stench of stale beer and body odor is covering up his whiskey and woodsmoke scent. One less temptation to throw me off track.

Slouching casually against the booth seat, I grip my glass in one hand and go for my best bored voice. “You’re a hard man to find.”

Kian raises an eyebrow, then lifts the menu back up to peruse the selections. “You didn’t find me.”

I reach out and slam my palm into the laminated paper, knocking it to the table.

“What the hell are you?” I snap.

He purses his lips for a moment, the first sign of emotion I’ve seen on his face. “I’m a shif—”

“Bullshit,” I cut in before he even finishes speaking. “You’re not a shifter. You’re more than that.”

Joe appears next to the table and slides my change across the sticky surface. He glances between me and Kian, then raises an eyebrow at me. “You forgot your change.”

“Thanks,” I say and peel off a ten for him.

With one last suspicious glance between us, Joe leaves us to the rising tension.

Kian leans forward, lacing his fingers on the table top. With his elbows out and his chest so fucking broad to begin with, the position makes him loom, makes his body take up all the space in the little alcove. His voice comes out gruff, dark, and dangerous. “You’re going to presume to tell me what I am?”

“Yeah,” I bite out, then swallow my heartbeat in my throat. “You’re a feral shifter.”

A server arrives then, interrupting us again, and I consider screaming at her to go away so I can interrogate Kian in peace. But her bubbly energy displaces the tension hovering over the table. She’s ridiculously young with a round face, huge eyes, and breasts that her little crop top can hardly contain. Her name tag says Brandee.

Kian doesn’t even look at her. His thunderous gaze remains trained on me as the words “feral shifter” hover in the air between us.

“Hiya!” Brandee chirps, pen poised over a little pad. “Can I start you off with a drink?”

Before Kian can speak, I shoot him a vicious smile, holding his gaze while I speak to the waitress. “He’ll have a happy hour whiskey. Cheapest you’ve got.”

“Coming right up!” she promises with a smile, then bounces away with her ponytail swinging.

A muscle ticks in Kian’s jaw, and his eyes glitter like aged gold coins. “Do you know what feral means?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Wild. Untamed.”

He nods as if that explains everything, then leans back, nearly mimicking my “pretending to be unbothered and casual” pose. He gestures to my glass. “Gin and tonic. Your tastes haven’t changed.”

“This conversation isn’t about me.”

“Oh, I think it is,” Kian murmurs. “Who told you I was a feral shifter?”

“A witch.”

“Hmm. What else did this witch tell you?”

I take a sip of my gin to calm my nerves. This version of Kian grates on me. The low, even tones. The disinterest. The way he almost seems to be talking down to me, like I’m a child who’s gotten a wild notion and he’s the grown up trying to make sense of my naïveté.

Where’s the man who looked at me like an equal? The mysterious, sexy man with the knowing smile?

Whatever. It just makes it easier for me to do what I came to do.