Rejected Mate (Feral Shifters 1)

He shrugs, his blue gaze roaming the library, looking everywhere but at me. “Because we belong in the shadows, I suppose. The shadow magic hurts, like fire beneath our skin. Constant, unending agony. But if we get close to the shadow realm… it stops. We can breathe.” His gaze lifts to meet mine. “That’s why we want to bring the shadow realm to earth. To stop the pain.”

I can see the brutal honesty on his face. Frost’s walls are gone, and his emotions are fully exposed. He’s not lying to me. He’s baring the single biggest secret he has.

And it’s a horrific one.

I try to imagine if my wolf was restless and achy inside me. And not in the normal way, where I get itchy and need to blow off some steam with a run or a fuck, or the way she howls for Kian, Malix, and Frost, a low level hum inside me every moment I’m with them. Those things don’t hurt. Not physically.

Their bodies are at war. The shifter side and the shadow side.

Goddamn.

On the heels of my horror comes the pity.

What a shitty way to live.

I stand, smoothing my sweaty palms over my jeans. “I’m… I need to use the bathroom.”

“Down the hall and left,” Frost offers, then chooses another shelf and gets back to work.

I ignore his directions and go downstairs, needing space from him. From all of them.

Someone wedged the front door back into place, though there’s a giant split in the middle from where Kian damn near tore it in half. I stop in the darkness beyond the foyer and wrap my arms around my middle, breathing through the turmoil inside me. A few feet away, Kian and Malix talk in the living room, discussing things they find as they work. Malix says something, and Kian laughs, and the sound is so real. So rich, like the burst of caramel inside a molten chocolate candy.

I don’t want to feel sorry for these men.

I don’t want to feel anything for them.

I fought tooth and nail to overcome what Kian did to me all those years ago. It took every bit of willpower I had to compartmentalize my emotions, the mate bond, the affection I felt for him in just that one night. When I shoved it all away, I was left with emptiness. More emptiness than I’d ever felt before. And I clung to that void inside me because it fueled my rage and kept all those warm fuzzies away.

Until I got dragged into this mess. Their world.

Malix’s humor. Frost’s honesty. Kian’s loyalty to his brothers.

I can’t see them as people. I can’t see their goodness because it erases the void. As long as I only see them as monsters, I can survive this and do the job I came here to do.

Suddenly, from inside the bright living room, Malix crows.

I rush around the corner, thinking he’s found exactly what we need. Maybe Erik lied to us, and he had a whole jar of Tree of Life sap waiting in his cupboards.

But no.

Malix stands near the cabinets filled with Erik’s supplies, a big grin on his face and a bottle held aloft.

Not the ingredient we need.

Whiskey.

I roll my eyes.

These assholes will be the death of me.

Chapter 17

An hour later, we’re no closer to answers regarding the Tree of Life, but we’re about halfway through the bottle of whiskey. We’re sprawled out on Erik’s couches, exhausted and frustrated at not having found any hints about where to find the damned Tree of Life.

The whiskey helps though, I gotta say. So do the bags of chips and pretzels Malix rustled up from somewhere in the kitchen.

“Weirdo had decent taste in liquor,” he observes, rotating the bottle so Kian can see the label.