Untamed Mate (Feral Shifters 2)

Not me. Never me.

Even in that hotel room three years ago, he was never mine.

If he’d never set foot in Montana, never found me in that shitty little bar where I was trolling to get laid, would any of this have ever happened?

Sometimes, I wonder what things would be like if I had taken Ridge up on dinner and a card game that night. If I hadn’t met Kian, hadn’t fucked him, hadn’t irrevocably entwined my fate with his. Maybe I would be back home in Montana right now, babysitting Sable’s kid so she and her mates could have a date night. Maybe I’d be dating someone in the pack who could never fully be mine, not without a mate bond, but someone who would be a lot less complicated than what I’m stuck with now.

In sleep, Kian’s face is almost soft, the sharp angles less severe. The entire room smells like him. Whiskey and woodsmoke, heady enough to make my head spin. The gnawing void in my chest aches as I study him, safe in the knowledge he’s under the potion’s effects. Our mate bond is gone, no longer a thready connection between us that draws me in to him like a moth to flame. But even worse than that emptiness where it should be, I still want him. I’m still drawn to him, even if it’s in a different way than before.

I tighten my grip on my knife and steel my resolve.

They did me a favor by breaking the mate bond. It just makes it easier for me to do what I have to do.

Bracing myself, I raise the knife higher and prepare to plunge it in his chest.

But just as my muscles tense to strike, a flash of movement catches my attention. My gaze snaps to his arm, where the shadows on his skin are swirling madly. In less than a second, every black mark on his body begins to wave, as if the shadows inside him are running riot.

Kian’s eyes snap open.