Rejected Mate (Feral Shifters 1)

“Leaving to go where?” I ask as he passes me on his way back into the motel room.

He halts and levels his gold-ringed eyes on me. There’s hot anger burning in his gaze. I think for a second that it’s fury toward me, until he speaks again. “To pay Erik a visit.”

Frost appears at my side and places his cool hand on my shoulder. “You heard what the shadows said. The witch sent them after us. With you as the prize.”

I shudder at the reminder. Not just of the shadows’ creepy hissing voices, but at the fact that Erik the mad witch has machinations on me. I don’t know what the fuck he wants to do with me, but it definitely can’t be anything good.

“You heard them speak too?” I clarify.

Frost nods. His expression is ice cold.

I remember the way he leapt out of the darkness and carried the shadow away from me. He saved my life. Although, maybe we’re square, given he might have suffocated beneath his own shadow if I hadn’t yelled for help.

Malix limps up to us, his violet eyes flashing in the night. “I hear sirens.”

Kian nods. “We need to go. Now. Time to make the witch pay.”

Chapter 15

The dirt road that leads to Erik’s rundown shack is even darker in the night. A few of the sad little houses lining the strip have a light or two gleaming inside, but for the most part, the desert is silent and black as midnight.

Kian leaves the road for a patch of sparse grass next to a seemingly unoccupied house—considering its door is hanging off the hinges—and the rest of us park beside him. Instead of riding our bikes down the r

oad and announcing our presence like we did earlier in the day, we walk the rest of the way.

Intense heat from the day is fading as we walk down the dirt road, and the strange chill of night is settling in. The weather here is so extreme—one moment, sunburn, the next hypothermia. But I can imagine the allure of living somewhere so secluded. So isolated.

Peace. The lack of city lights ruining the stars or pollution in the air.

It reminds me a bit of home. Only drier. More brown.

A light burns in one of Erik’s front windows like a beacon, growing larger as we head toward it. We stay off the road, slinking through the desert shadows. Even though Frost’s hair flashes in the moonlight, the three of them are preternaturally silent.

As a shifter, I’m silent too, but they’re on a whole new level.

I can’t help but wonder what the hell else is different about them.

When we reach Erik’s yard, Kian points to Frost and Malix, then points to the side of the house, before rotating his finger. A signal for them to go around the back of the house, I’m guessing, because they immediately peel away from us into the darkness.

Kian catches my gaze. The moonlight turns the gold in his eyes to a molten silver. He lifts his chin, indicating I should follow him.

It’s weird. I’ve hated him for years. I’ve wished I could rip his head off his gorgeous body since the moment he left me in that hotel bed.

But here I am. Following his orders like he’s my fucking alpha or something.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I tiptoe across the rickety wooden boards of Erik’s front porch on Kian’s heels. A television plays inside—something squeaky and high-pitched, like a cartoon. Not that I’m surprised, given how fucking weird the guy is for a witch.

Kian pauses for a moment, his eyes going blank. I stare up at him, confused; the look on his face is almost like he’s listening to something I can’t hear. I get the strangest feeling he’s communicating in some way with Frost and Malix, but that can’t be. Mind-speak is only for when we’re in wolf form.

But I mean… they aren’t exactly normal. The very short time I’ve spent with them has reinforced that unpleasant truth on multiple occasions.

After a moment, Kian’s gaze refocuses on Erik’s dingy wooden door, then he kicks it off its hinges.

We barrel into the house to the din of another door splitting somewhere else in the house. Frost and Malix, I presume, entering from around the back. They don’t appear, though—not right away. As small as the shack is, we should see them immediately. I glance down the dark hallway, but nothing moves.

We clear the living room, where incense burns on Erik’s altar and the television plays an old nineties cartoon chock full of dumb toilet humor. The witch is nowhere to be found, though there’s a can of beer on the table, still half full, still condensing. We head into the hallway and finally run into Frost and Malix.