Untamed Mate (Feral Shifters 2)

Amora

The snow comes as expectedthat evening. Frost finds a transistor radio in a kitchen drawer, and we gather around a dinner of canned beef stew to listen to the weatherman tell us not to go anywhere unless we want to be buried.

Great.

For the time being, we’re stuck in the cabin together hoping that Quinton’s minions won’t brave the blizzard just to come find us.

A foot of snow falls on the mountainside overnight. I listen to the soft hush of the world around the cabin from the solitude of a small guest room, the door locked against the feral shifters just because I can. When I pad downstairs in the morning, everything outside the windows is white and fluffy, as far as my eye can see.

On the bright side, I’ll have time to recoup my energy and heal my bruises while we’re safely hidden away.

And time to figure out what to do next.

I give the feral shifters a wide berth. They plant themselves on the couch with the radio and a stack of old magazines—manly shit about hunting and fishing, not exactly the kind of thing I’d expect them to be interested in. Not because they aren’t hunters in their own right, but because the kind of hunting they do is much more brutal and violent than anything in the magazines.

It isn’t like we have much else to entertain us, though. Despite the cabin’s owners clearly being well off, there’s no cable connected to the television. I spend most of the day on a wicker couch on the screened-in back porch, a space heater pointed at me and a mound of blankets around me as I read a romance novel I found in the living room. I need the space between me and the men. Space to breathe and think.

We have a dinner of yet more beef stew so loaded down with sodium I can feel it seeping through my pores. After being cooped up with them all day and feeling like my entire world has spiraled too far out of control, I’m irritable as hell.

I eat my food in silence for a while, but with every bite, I can feel the tension in my shoulders tightening until it feels like they’re a solid block of cement.

“Are you gonna stop your quest?” I finally demand when I can’t keep the words in any longer.

Kian is bent over his bowl, his spoon looking way too small in his large hand. He glances up at me, gold-ringed eyes flashing in the overhead light. “What?”

“Your mission to find a way to connect the shadow realm to earth. Are you gonna give that up or not?”

He drops his spoon into his bowl with a clatter. “We’ve already discussed this. Why are we still debating it?”

I slam my own spoon down. “Why? Because when this snow melts, I want to know if I can count on you or if I’ll need to kill you.”

Malix cuts in, shooting a glare at his brother. “You can count on us.”

Kian bares his teeth at the other man, but then turns back to me, his voice gruff as he agrees, “We won’t be leaving you behind.”

“So you aren’t going back to Quinton?”

Rather than answering me, he stands abruptly and grabs his bowl in both hands before stomping out of the kitchen.

I raise an eyebrow at Malix.

He shrugs, an amused grin curling up one corner of his lips. “Don’t look at me. I’m not the one who gets off on poking the bear.”

It’s been like this ever since we got here yesterday. None of them will commit to giving up their original goal, but none of them seem willing to leave me and return home, either. Whatever choice they ultimately make, I need to know. Because when this snow melts, we’ll need to leave before somebody finds us here.

I shiver and wrap my arms around myself, holding the terry-cloth robe tighter.

For the moment, the men and I are reluctant allies. But it feels like there’s a ticking bomb hanging over us.

Frost hasn’t said a word this entire time, but he’s stopped eating, and I know he’s been listening to the exchange, taking it all in. Shoving to my feet almost as violently as Kian did, I leave him and Malix behind and stalk down the hallway.

None of the guys have been sleeping in the master bedroom, so I decide to take it over for an hour and soak in a hot bath. In the silent master bathroom, I step out of my borrowed clothes and the robe, then crank on the water, letting it run over my fingers until it warms. I play with the knob until it’s the perfect temperature, just shy of lava, and let it run while I run a comb through my hair.

Being this close to them all the time, being surrounded by their scents and unable to get away from them, is bringing back too many memories I’d rather forget. Those few stolen moments when I believed that things would be better, that they could change and I wouldn’t have to kill them.

Plus, all these unearthed feelings shouldn’t even exist. They destroyed our mate bond. That magic worked. I felt it work, and I’ve lived with the aftermath of that deep, dark void inside me.

So why does this intense attraction still exist between us?

I slip the hairbrush back into the drawer where I found it, then step carefully into the hot water. Every muscle in my body aches and groans as I fold myself into the jacuzzi style tub. My back slips easily along the smooth surface, and I dip beneath the water until it closes over my head, cutting me off from the world.

If I can just block out everything for a minute, maybe I’ll figure out a way to not feel so upside down over my attraction to these men.

But even beneath the surface as I hold my breath, bubbles slipping from my nose and popping with a musical lilt in the thick, underwater world, I can’t even force out thoughts of Malix’s kiss.

His lips, his hands on my body, everything about it set my body aflame. It was hardly different from how it feels right now with my face underwater, no oxygen to save me.

Planting my palms on the bottom of the tub, I shove out of the water and take a deep breath as I wipe droplets from my face and eyes.

Even Kian and Frost are a source of tension, even though I haven’t shared a kiss or anything with them since we’ve been here. Just this morning, I came up against Kian in the narrow upstairs hallway. He loomed over me, shoulders so broad and muscular he took up all the space in the corridor. For several seconds, we locked gazes and the air was so charged I half expected a bolt of lightning to come cracking out of nowhere.

Any time I spend in his presence is a reminder of our night together. The night that ruined my life, though I didn’t know it at the time.

My mind continues to whirl, bouncing from one thought to another. Mostly about the events of the past few years—and the past few weeks, specifically. Before I know it, the water’s gone cold around me.

Shit. I spent my whole bath not really relaxing at all.