Rejected Mate (Feral Shifters 1)

Get up!

I finally convince my hands to unclench, and the blanket falls away from my chest. My knife is on the nightstand, and I’m calculating whether or not I can reach it before he reaches me, when my mate moves.

His weight shifts just enough to draw my attention, and there’s a blur of something that flashes in the angle of the streetlight. Then something long and heavy slices through the air toward my head.

Except… it misses me.

I jerk away, turning to stare at the knife embedded in the headboard.

Only inches from my head.

I raise an eyebrow and glare at him, fury lancing through me. “You missed.”

He inclines his head, and his shoulder-length platinum hair brushes over the dark fabric of his shirt like spiderwebs, but he doesn’t respond.

Suddenly, an odd, quiet hissing fills the room. It’s close to my ear—really close. I glance back at the embedded knife and notice for the first time that there’s a strange shadow on the headboard. The room is dim, and the sliver of light passing through the curtains is enough to cast a few shadows on the floor and across the mattress, but this one…

This isn’t normal.

It’s darker than most shadows, and it doesn’t seem to have a source.

As I stare at the black shape, it squirms. At first, I think I’ve imagined it—a trick of the light, a trick of my own movement, a trick of gravity. Because there’s no way in hell a shadow can move on its own.

Until it moves again.

It squirms against the knife’s blade, parts of it rising from the headboard like a corporeal black cloud.

My breath hitches in my throat.

Is that motherfucker alive?

I’m no stranger to magic. Hell, I’m no stranger to some real crazy kinds of magic, not after the battle with the witches back in Montana—the one that brought Gwen into my life and set me on this path. But this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Peter Pan’s disembodied shadow, only darker and more menacing.

Then it attacks.

The shadow slides away from the blade pinning it to the headboard as if the knife isn’t even solid. It leaps for me, coming away from the tacky upholstered bedframe like a thick, black cloud.

I launch backward, falling off the bed in my haste. On the way down, I grab my knife off the nightstand and land on my back with my legs above me, still tangled in the covers. Not the most graceful thing I’ve ever done, especially considering I’m in what amounts to panties and a t-shirt with my ass in the air in front of a stranger. But I at least manage to get my blade ready.

The shadow follows me down, and I lash out. My blade flashes silver in the moonlight but does nothing to the blob. It barrels toward me, undete

rred, and I roll away, wrapping myself even tighter in the blankets as I try to dodge its attack.

The blond man looms over me; I didn’t even hear his approach. He punches out, his fist catching the shadow as if it’s actually a solid form. The dark cloud lurches away from me and hits the bedside stand, passing through the lamp and slamming into the wall, where it disappears.

“Get up,” the man says in a low, dangerous voice.

His voice is deep and raspy, like it's not used to being used. For a moment, I stare up at him in the ambient light, astonished to find he has curlicue black tattoos just like Kian. Only… his tattoos move. Right before my eyes, they shift up his arms like a wave crashing on the shore before they freeze again.

Before I can get too interested, the shadow appears on the ceiling behind his angelic face.

“Behind—!”

But I don’t even get to finish my warning.

The man whirls around on surprisingly light, graceful feet and lashes out with his knife. His timing is impeccable—the moment the shadow launches at his head, he’s turning and slicing. The shadow jolts and falls aside toward the TV stand, where it disappears into the darkness.