Season of the Witch (Claws Clause 2)

Shea might’ve seen other cocks before. Considering how she felt about him, he doubted she wanted anything to do with his.

He should go. Get away from the lure of her extraordinary scent. For months, he’d tried to convince himself that, if she was truly meant for him, the choice would’ve been taken out of his paws. That’s how it happened for Maddox and Evangeline. His parents, too. A desire to stay a bachelor, even his hatred of witches, shouldn’t have stood in his wolf’s way of taking his mate once he got a whiff of her scent.

But Shea Moonshadow wasn’t just a witch. She was a healer who protected herself—and her enormous heart—by constantly keeping her shields up. All along, her true scent was muted to a mere whisper. It hardly affected him.

Now that he had his lungs full of her?

Colt knew he was done for.

Too bad he also knew that he was way too fucking late.

* * *

Her shields were… were gone.

Shea didn’t know how to explain what happened. One second she was marveling over the majestic creature Colton shifted into. The next? She’d had her back turned, waiting for him to put his clothes back on when, out of nowhere, he was pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

It was such a surprise. She never expected it, least of all from her shifter, and while she was sure that she was doing it all wrong since it was her first time, she kissed him back.

Her shields should’ve held. No reason why they should’ve vanished like that.

But they did.

He could tell, too. As the bond stretched between them both, Colton pulled back, clutching his chest with his hand as he panted like a cornered animal. Sensory overload. For the first time since they met each other, Shea was completely open—and Colton was experiencing the world the same way that Shea did when her shields were down.

Even worse, without her shields to protect her, she could finally get a full read on Colton.

Whoa.

With a gasp and a grimace, she dashed across the room, moving behind her stuffed sofa.

She hoped that putting some distance between them would help and maybe it did.Or maybe Colton was such a hard-headed shifter, he was pushing past the emotions flooding the living room as if he couldn’t feel them.

Slowly, he straightened from his almost crouch, rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand. He gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he stepped toward her, his other hand reaching out for her.

“Hey.” His voice was gruff yet shaky—and Shea, Goddess help her, thought she might know why. “You okay?”

She was.

He... wasn’t.

Colton had spent more than five months trying to stay away from her despite his instincts constantly telling him that Shea was meant to be his mate. She’d resented him for that but, as he looked at her with a combination of confusion and outright lust warring in his tortured expression, it hit her that she’d been doing the same exact thing.

Her shields. For as long as she purposely used her shields as a barrier between them, she was denying them both. And, sure, maybe she’d been afraid to let her empathic abilities free in case she read only indifference coming off of Colton. She’d been able to hold onto hope that way, never guessing that her shifter had secrets of his own.

Without any kind of buffer, she could sense their full bond; when her shields were up, it only ever reached that far. The tether was stronger than she would’ve guessed, more like a thick rope than the slender thread she had thought tied them together.

And it hurt.

Furrowing her brow, tip-toeing away from the sofa as Colton stalked her like she was skittish prey, she realized that the pain she was feeling? It wasn’t just her usual reaction from his continued rejection.

Most of the pain was coming from him.

She followed the end of the bond straight to Colton and gasped at what she found there. Their bond was strong, but it wasn’t whole. It had a jagged edge that seemed to cut straight into his bruised heart.

She could feel the tear. Could Colton? His wolf? She didn’t know. A human would never be able to, and Shea doubted that there was a single witch in Coventry who’d find it easy to trace the pain he kept bottled up inside to that spot.

It wasn’t new. The heat level was warm instead of scorching, a constant discomfort that he was used to—and it was all because of their bond.