Season of the Witch (Claws Clause 2)

Good.

“You don’t have to do that. I… let’s keep this between us. No one else needs to be involved.” His dark blue eyes went light as if he was thinking about something that angered him. More than five months later and they weren’t exactly strangers anymore. Five months later and she knew when his wolf was coming forward. “No one else needs to know.”

Shea’s breath caught in her throat. Okay, then. Looked like the wolf shifter was willing to give as good as he got. Because that? That was a super low blow. He wanted her to be his dirty, little secret?

Of course he did.

And that stung even more than his open rejection.

She wasn’t going to tell him that, though. Tightening her shields, keeping her emotions away from Colton, Shea nodded. For added measure, she conjured up a smile. “Works for me.”

“Keep in touch.”

“I’ve got your number. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got an answer for you. So, uh, there’s no need for you to come down here and check on me. You’ve made it perfectly clear how much you don’t want to be bonded to me.”

His eyes flashed, going even icier. “It’s not like that—”

“It’s fine. Being bonded to a guy who doesn’t want me would be like a jail sentence for me, too. I finally get it. I know what’s at stake. It’s just… it’ll be easier if I don’t see you, you know?”

“Easier… What do you mean by that?”

She didn’t answer. Because, honestly, if he hadn’t realized it by now, he was being dense on purpose.

Shea was so very tired of pretending that she was all for dissolving this tie between them.

To tell the truth, she hadn’t liked the idea of being some unknown shifter’s mate. When her grandmother explained that the strange illness she’d been suffering from for a week had to do with a bond she wasn’t even aware of, she was all for breaking it—if only it had been as easy as that. The aches were awful, like sympathy pains on steroids. Turned out Colton had been injured so terribly when that rogue witch attacked him with her magic that, while his body struggled to heal, his hurt was slipping down their bond toward Shea.

After talking it over with Luciana, the head of her family’s coven, plus her Nana, Shea finally understood what was happening. Their unfinished bond was keeping the shifter male from healing and, as a result, she was experiencing his injuries. She could deal with her own—as an empath and a healer, she was used to feeling other people’s pain whenever she let down her shields—but it killed her, knowing that someone else was suffering.

And then she discovered it was Colton Wolfe, the beautiful, sexy wolf shifter who’d delivered a dresser to her shop the month before. He was gruff and grumpy and, in her experience, kind of clumsy, but he was pretty and—when she found out he was the one who built the dresser—extremely talented.

As she tended to him, she learned more about him. Before long, she was definitely interested in becoming his mate.

From Evangeline, she heard stories about the type of man he was. Loyal. Kind. Stubborn, definitely. Generous, too. She told Shea all about how Colton kept his family together while Maddox was locked up in the Cage, and how Colton was the reason his older brother was free again.

Then there was the attack that landed him in the hospital in the first place. Priscilla Winters, the rogue witch, had abducted Evangeline and was preparing to sacrifice her when Colton burst in and stalled her long enough for Maddox to rescue his mate.

From everything she heard, Colton sounded like a good guy who had an even better reason to hate witches.

She thought she could change his mind. At the very least, she didn’t want him to stay injured when she could help him heal. So Shea had spent days at his bedside, wishing him better, anxious to see his gaze light up when he realized that she was his mate and that she’d come to him.

It, uh… it didn’t happen quite like that.

She was halfway in love with him—or, rather, the idea of him being her fated mate—by the time he woke up. Then he did, and he made it very, very clear that he wasn’t interested in any mate.

Supposedly, it wasn’t personal.

Supposedly.

“We’re not mates, Colton. You keep reminding me that. Having you watch over my shoulder while I try to make that the truth isn’t helping me out. I’ll call you if I need you. Other than that, I don’t think it’s a good idea that you come down here.”

Colton was super pretty, but maybe not so much when he glowered like that.

“Are you telling me to stay away?”

“I’m only saying that that would be for the best. This… this attraction between us? It doesn’t know that we’re trying to dissolve the bond.”

Shea held her breath, waiting to see if he would deny that he felt some kind of pull toward her. When all Colton did was cross his toned arms over his muscular chest while staying quiet, she let out the softest of relieved sighs.