Untamed Mate (Feral Shifters 2)

Malix

I stand between my brothers,looking up at the village where we were born, and all I want to do is run the other way.

Returning with bad news isn’t my favorite thing. Every time we come back without the key to opening the barrier between our realm and the shadow realm, I feel a little more like a failure. A little more like I’m letting our alpha down, ruining the only purpose I have to exist.

Even more than that, I feel like I’m letting my brothers down. I know they struggle with the pain. I do too. All we need is that one fucking break, and everything will be fixed. No more pain. No more feeling isolated and different.

Home, Kian says gruffly.

Not home, I counter, pawing at the snowy ground with one giant black paw. Not really.

Frost huffs his agreement. Just a place to lay our heads until we return to our true purpose.

The village winds up a road on the side of a remote mountain in the Rockies. If it wasn’t ass cold and full of shifters who would rather we stay away forever, the place might be beautiful. The narrow streets are lined with quaint, matching houses with thatched roofs and timber walls, each connected by strings of solar-powered lights that illuminate at night. A snow-covered peak looms above it all, like some kind of Swiss Alps, lederhosen wearing, Yodel-screaming watercolor painting.

I sigh and take a step forward. Come on. Let’s get this over with.

Kian lets out a low yip to get my attention. Hey. Shift to wolf form. You know how the pack can be about our shadow forms.

Yeah, they can be little bitches,I mutter.

Malix, he warns, and I swear I hear the eye roll in his tone.

Black smoke swirls and billows around me, but instead of reaching for my human form, I slide sideways into my normal shifter form. I trade black smoke for black fur peppered with white, and I shrink by several feet. The result is that the village in front of me feels bigger and even more unsettling than before.

Ah, well. Frost is right. It’s just a place to lay our heads, and we won’t be here long.

I fall into step beside Kian’s large dark brown wolf, and Frost—his fur as white as the snow beneath us—pads along on my other side. We’ll walk into the village together. Form a united front.

Not many shifters are out and about in this weather. The clouds hang low and heavy, gunpowder gray from the coming snow. I can taste the precipitation on the air, and the change in barometric pressure feels like a gnarly sized storm. At least we’ll have somewhere warm to sleep tonight.

As we pass the first few cabins, curtains flicker and faces appear in the windows. Suspicious gazes follow us up the slowly ascending road. We’re used to the stares—we grew up with them. The “normal” shifters have been weird around us since we were born, so I can’t expect anything else. Some of them are just scared of us, like we’re monsters who might leap at them and rip their throats out for fun.

Others, however, hate us. They harbor anger, even resentment, because we’re Quinton’s special team. His favorites. The alpha has thrown his lot in with us, and we don’t have to work for his attention like everyone else. Guess that makes some people salty.

I ignore the heavy weight of their eyes and their judgment, my gaze on Quinton’s cabin at the end of the road. It’s the largest and nicest in the village, high above the rest where he can keep an eye on his pack and see any possible threats from outside pack lands before they reach us.

Like his crazy ex-mate.

Felicity left years ago, but she didn’t slink away into the night with her tail between her legs. She took nearly a third of the pack with her and has built her own shifter pack, becoming an alpha in her own right. And judging by the shadow magic she managed to use when she sent those shadows after us, she’s still hell-bent on stopping Quinton from achieving his goal—and is willing to fight fire with fire.

My legs burn from the climb by the time we reach Quinton’s front porch. We shift to human form, then dress in the clothes from our packs before Kian bangs on the wooden door. Several moments pass as we stand in the cold until the door opens.

Santiago peers out at us, his black eyes narrowing. “Oh. It’s you.”

For lack of a better word, Santiago is Quinton’s assistant. His “yes man,” kept around to run errands and do the dirty work. He’s a large guy, bigger than me, muscular but also a little thick around the middle—and thick in the head. He has weathered caramel skin, dark eyes, and shiny black hair that he treats like his most prized treasure. Right now, he’s wearing jeans, a plain white tee shirt, and a scowl.

“It’s us,” Kian says stiffly. “Is Quinton in?”

Santiago shrugs and steps back, leaving the door open for us to pass over the threshold.

The house is stifling hot. A wave of heat and humidity filters past me into the cold evening air, and I close the door behind us, trapping it all inside. Quinton’s wood stove is clearly working overtime to keep away the mountain chill. You’d think a man who chose to settle his pack in this desolate place high in the mountains would be more used to a little cold weather.

Santiago motions toward the living room. “Sit. I’ll get him.”

The three of us file into the living room, giving the wood stove in the corner a wide berth. I find a place next to the curtained window where a draft chases away the overbearing heat, and I cross my arms over my chest as I lean against the wall. Frost clasps his hands behind his back in the center of the room, facing the doorway like a soldier waiting on his commanding officer, while Kian leans wearily on his hands on the back of the couch. He looks as tired as I feel; I’m not sure when the last time we slept a full night was.

After a few moments of silence broken only by the wood cracking inside the large, black stove, Quinton strides into the room.

“There they are,” Quinton booms, holding his arms wide to encompass us. He claps his hands together and grins around, catching our gazes one at a time.

Quinton is barely five-foot-eight, but he’s nothing but muscle and sturdy like an ox. Light from the oil lamps catches the few strands of gray in his brown hair, making them glint brightly. When we were young and he was raising us after we lost our mothers, I used to think he was larger than life. Then I outgrew him and realized there’s more to a large personality than just height.

“Welcome home, my boys,” he says as he collapses onto the couch and crosses his legs, resting one ankle on his knee. “I hope you come bearing good news.”

I exchange glances with Kian as the three of us move to stand before our Alpha.

Kian clears his throat. “We found a rift in New Mexico that was nearly as thin as we needed. However, upon further investigation, it wasn’t enough.”

Quinton’s face hardens. “It wasn’t enough.”