by Anne Conley
Gerri spoke up instead.
“Chase has worked for it. And he’s done all the wrong things.” Her eyes flitted around the table, an absurdly amused twinkle in them. “He had his mate and let her go.”
“Dammit,” Chase cursed under his breath, suddenly realizing the divorce was a bad idea. Shifters didn’t divorce. His dad had been right all along. He may not like Angelica, but she was it for him.
“Chase!” his gramma admonished. Tanner jumped as she pinched him.
“Ow! I didn’t say it!” He pouted across the table, but Chase was oblivious.
“Well, I couldn’t reach him,” Gramma crossed her arms, leveling a shrewd look at Chase, who was wiping his mouth with his napkin.
“I’m sorry. Dinner was delicious, but I’ve got to go.” He stood, knocking his chair over in the process.
He had to make this right. He was such a fuck up, there was no way he would ever make a good leader, but one sign was admitting mistakes, right?
“Chase,” his mother called, even as he ran out the door.
Chase knew he was holding on to some sort of childhood fairy tale with all the Kelli stuff. It was time for him to grow a pair and tell Angelica he’d made a huge mistake.
**
Gerri was amused by the whole ordeal, even if it made her miss her boys at home. These cats were different from her wolves, though—all that coiled tension and sleek grace.
Even so, Gloria had some explaining to do. “What’s all this Olde Story nonsense?” Gerri prompted.
“It’s something my grandparents talked about. They said a time would come when the leader’s children would have to turn outsiders to find their mates. Chase bonded with the only shifter in the area of age, and unless he’s willing to wait ten years for the next one to come of age, he’s out of luck.” Gloria’s eyes drifted to her remaining grandsons at the table. “I honestly don’t see any of you waiting for little miss Lola to get there.”
Tanner muttered an “Ewww” under his breath.
“Who says they have to mate with shifters?” Gerri was starting to understand the tension around the table. This community was out of the way, relatively cut off from the rest of the world in this idyllic oasis of shifters. “We mate with humans all the time.” It was how the species stayed alive. Shifters were rarer than people realized, and numbers were dwindling.
“We don’t.” Allen, a pompous ass Gerri was trying to like—against her will—pounded the table with his proclamation.
“Well, it’s possible,” Gerri muttered, reaching for the parmesan cheese.
“There’s not a way to turn a non-shifter,” the quiet one, Jude, said. As she looked around, Gerri realized this entire family of boys had given up any hope of finding mates. “Apparently, the Olde Story was a fairy tale.”
Gerri tutted.
Gloria put a forkful of pasta in her mouth and continued, talking around her food in a way only the matriarch of the family could get away with. “Nope. When you’re both of age, if you bite each other during the mating, you can be bonded, and it will cause the shift in her if she’s the One.”
Tanner, the youngest who sat next to Gloria, perked up. “So you’re saying I could possibly mate with one of the human women and turn her into one of us? And she can be my mate? Bonded mate?” Excitement gleamed in his eyes, and Gerri knew his mate wasn’t here yet. But would be. Soon.
“It’s an old legend, son. I wouldn’t put too much stock in it,” his father cautioned. Gerri snorted, and he gave her a dirty look.
His mother piped up, “It would be so nice if it were true, though.” To his father, she said, “It would make Chase happy with his mate, at least. Especially if it’s Kelli. You know they’ve always taken a shine to each other.” Allen grunted, eating in silence.
Gerri turned to him. “What do you have against your sons’ happiness? You don’t expect them to spend their whole life without their mate, do you?”
“I expect them to find shifters. That’s what we do!” Allen roared, his face purpling with rage.
Gerri simply shook her head. “You need to get out more.” Changing the subject, she straightened. “What are you doing about that neighboring wolf pack that’s been making noise?”
Chapter five
Chase drove to Angelica’s house, hoping to find the will to do this on the way. He didn’t want her, but the old woman had said he’d let his mate go, and something in the sureness of her words had tugged at his insides, making him believe her. His dad depended on him to carry on the responsibilities of the community and follow in his footsteps.
Which meant he had to make nice with Angelica. They’d parted amicably, both admitting the relationship was more for show than love, especially after he’d discovered the gardener doing more than just weeding the flower beds.
His dad had suggested Chase overlook her infidelities but in the end, he’d agreed with Chase. With the new insight that Angelica was indeed the one, Chase just needed to make her understand she needed to behave.
He wouldn’t share.
But when he drove into her driveway, he smelled the scent of sex in the air, and it wasn’t just Angelica.
Getting out of the truck, he walked over to the window he knew was hers; it used to be theirs. When he looked inside, he saw Angelica with not one, not two, but three other men—all shifter males in a tangle of naked limbs, moans of ecstasy filtering out of the window.
He spun around and leaned on the wall, sinking to the ground.
His cat should want to come out and fight them all in a jealous rage.
That’s what mates did.
But his cat didn’t care.
He didn’t care.
He listened to the groans and hisses as the orgy happened inside the room, unable to bring himself to get angry. All Chase could think was he hoped this made her happy because he sure as hell couldn’t make her scream like that.
But he could make Kelli scream like that. Or, he used to, anyway.
As if that was all he needed, his cat inside roared to life, and he jumped back in his truck. He didn’t understand why, all he knew was that his cat needed to see her.
And he wasn’t about to argue.
Chase made it to Kelli’s house in record time, pushing his ancient truck to its limits. Parking down the street, he snuck up to the yard, guiltily, scoping out things before he climbed up to her window. That was something he used to do when they were younger, and he longed to do it again. But the view through the big picture window in the dining room pulled him up short.
And then he smelled him.
Kelli was eating dinner at her table with a wolf shifter—a stinky one at that. He didn’t have the pheromones of strength and leadership Ms. Wilder had at dinner. This one was different, weaker than Gerri, but still potent in his own right—mostly because he was eating with Chase’s girl—and Chase was looking in the window at them like a creepy pervert.
Kelli’s back was to him, and he watched the shifter’s eyes slide over her shoulder and meet his in the window, even as he saw the nostrils flare with recognition. A gleam came to his eyes and a smirk curled his lips, and everything inside Chase roared.
The shifter was mocking him.
Chase’s cougar pushed to the front of his mind, roaring and shrieking for him to shift so he could bust through the window and crush the wolf’s head. But Chase’s mind knew he’d lost her.
Again.
She wasn’t his to win anymore. No matter what he felt.
The wolf reached across the table and took her hand in his, bringing it to his lips to kiss, and Chase turned away from the scene.
He couldn’t torture himself anymore with things he couldn’t have. Gerri’s words came back to him. He had his mate and let her go.
At the time, he’d thought she was talking about Angelica, and maybe she had been, but his heart told him she was speaking of Kelli. Either way, neither one would ever be his.
; Needing to be near her, yet unwilling to watch the scene unfold in front of him, Chase shifted and climbed the tree next to her window. As long as they didn’t come up to her bedroom to have sex, he would stay. He wouldn’t do anything, just watch her. She didn’t belong to him anymore, he couldn’t have her.
His panther hated that and did everything it could to convince him she was his, but it was futile. He forced it to lay back in the branches and not move. When she came to her room, much later, he watched as she changed clothes, itching to run his hands over her curves and dry the tears streaming down her cheeks.
Tears?
Why did she cry?
The panther wanted to jump up and climb in the window, but he restrained it, barely. In her pajamas, she stared out the window, but her human eyes couldn’t see him. Eventually, she turned and curled up in her bed, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed.
Had that other shifter hurt her somehow? Chase didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t hers, that was clear. They hadn’t been together in almost ten years. He had no right to bust in and fix things, no matter how hard he tried.
Feeling utterly helpless, Chace shifted back to his human form and stalked to his truck. He threw himself inside and went home, barely containing his beast until he got to his own track of forest.
He shifted—embracing the feline part of himself—and ran all night long, desperate to make sense of what had just happened.
Chapter six
When there wasn’t anything to do in the office to help Dad, Chase usually worked with Tanner on his projects. Today was one of those days, even though it took everything inside him to force himself to go to work. His dad’s construction business wasn’t on his list of awesome things today, and spending time with his little brother—as much as he loved him—even less so.
The lack of sleep last night was making him cranky, and there was little chance he’d be able to work with the talkative young man without snapping at him.
As it was, though, they had a massive flooring job to do, and while shifters worked faster with fewer breaks than humans, it was still a job they’d been doing for almost a week.
As usual, Tanner was talkative. Chase did his best to ignore his brother until he got around to talking about Kelli, which only served to piss him off.
“Did you go to Kelli’s last night when you left? I hope it all worked out, but since you’re in such a shitty mood this morning, I’m guessing no? So Gerri was full of it like Dad thought?”
“What the hell are you yammering about?” Chase didn’t have a ton of patience for the babbling.
“Gerri and Gramma talked a bunch after you left last night. Oh lordy, you should have seen Dad.” Tanner chuckled, his blue eyes full of mirth. “He didn’t like what they said, at all.”
His curiosity piqued, Chase prodded his brother. “What did they say?”
“Well, Gramma was talking about some Olde prophecy, which said there would come a time when shifter females would be scarce and we’d be able to turn humans who were our bonded mate. Ms. Wilder said we’d always been able to bond with humans. She’s a matchmaker or something, and hooks shifters up with humans all the time in that city she lives in.”
Chase had been on his hands and knees, measuring the kitchen floor for the tile they were laying, while Tanner was cutting the tile pieces. Chase stopped and sat back on his heels.
“We can turn humans?” Nothing else registered in his mind. If they could turn humans into shifters, then everything changed. Everything he’d grown up believing was a lie. Everything about him not being able to have Kelli the way he wanted her was wrong.
Tanner nodded, still intent on his work. “Yup. So I figured you went to Kelli’s to do the deed, but I don’t guess you heard that part of things.”
Chase’s cougar gave a triumphant roar, but Chase wasn’t paying attention. He was already on his way to his truck. He had a lot of wrongs to right.
**
Kelli looked around her room, still decorated for her childhood, only with a few more of her mother’s things in it—her sewing machine, every family photo ever taken preserved in some weird scrapbooking fad, and a treadmill. Kelli wondered what her mother thought about walking in here and looking at all of her old trophies from volleyball in high school.
That’s what she tried to think about anyway, since the alternative was Chase and Dan and what a bitch she had been last night. At least that’s how she felt. She had laid things out for Dan, telling him she couldn’t marry him, that her heart would always belong to Chase—even if she couldn’t really be with him—and it wasn’t fair to Dan for her to marry a man she didn’t love.
He seemed to take it okay, even kissing her hand while she spoke, as if he were forgiving her for everything. But she saw the look in his eyes, the one that said he may have heard her words but didn’t fully understand them. His look turned calculating, which was rare for Dan, but she recognized it nonetheless and was afraid he would do something to try to get her back.
He and his family were staying in a local hotel, and had plans to go back today. She could only hope that’s what happened. Her mother had told her she’d explained things to his family, and they seemed disappointed but weren’t angry.
It was all too easy and made her edgy.
Today was the last of it, though. Dan and his parents were coming by this morning on their way back to the city. She wasn’t sure why, only that they’d said they would be here in about fifteen minutes, and she needed to be ready to face them one last time.
She dreaded it with every fiber of her being.
A tap at her window had her spinning around in shock. A familiar warmth rose in her. Only one person ever tapped on her second-story window. Only one who had an innate climbing nature could make it up there.
Chase.
Heart pounding, she walked over to where he was crouched on the limb outside the window, caramel-colored eyes shining at her. His sand-blond hair was tousled by the wind, and he looked so boyish and eager. So damn familiar.
Memories rushed through her, along with questions. But she couldn’t stop to sort them all out. He was here. Now. Automatically, she reached for the window and opened it, unable to stop the pull of Chase.
His eyes never leaving her, her childhood friend folded his limbs through the opening gracefully. He’d matured in the last ten years, and the image of him naked in front of her the other morning burned in her brain. He was dressed now in jeans and a sweatshirt, but it didn’t stop her imagination from filling in the blanks.
And if the tapping on her window made her warm with anticipation of who was on the other side, the reality of the heat in his eyes was going to make her explode. Kelli felt him inside her skin, making everything hot and wet. She longed to feel him against her one last time, even if she knew it was wrong.
“Kelli,” he rasped, standing tall, tension coiled in his muscles.
“Chase,” she choked out, realizing she was leaning toward him. She’d always loved Chase. She always would. Even if she could never have him.
His musky scent filled the room, taking all of her air away from her. She couldn’t speak if she wanted to. Kelli licked her top lip, sucking it into her mouth, and his eyes tracked the movement. She had to be the one to put a stop to this. She knew exactly where it was leading. And it would only hurt more when he found the one he was supposed to be with. Kelli had made her decision to be alone forever, but she wouldn’t be his eternal booty-call.
“You can’t be in here,” she whispered, but it was too late. As if just waiting for her lips to move, he pounced.
Chase’s lips crashed against hers in a familiar tango as his long arms wrapped around her body, hauling her against him. Instinctively, her hands sank in his hair, and they fell onto her bed in a tangle of limbs. She moaned into his mouth at the long-lost sensations he evoked in her.
God she’d missed this.
His hands roamed her body, reacquainting themselves w
ith her curves, as his tongue invaded her mouth. Kelli curled her tongue around his, stroking it with another moan before he broke the kiss and started licking and nipping her neck, down to her chest. His hands had already brought up her skirt and were fumbling with her panties, tugging on them. It was just like old times—fast, feverish, and perfect.
“I’ve figured out how we can be together, Kel,” he panted against her skin, pulling her panties down. He let out a growling noise as her hips tilted against his pelvis to feel his erection. Even as the words brought joy to her heart, Kelli still saw the futility in them. But the physical reaction to Chase was too much. Always had been.
“My God, you smell so fucking good. I’ve missed you so much.” He buried his face in her neck, sniffing, licking, and biting the skin. Kelli wanted him lower, wanted him higher, wanted him inside her. “Don’t leave me again,” he pleaded with her, tugging at her heart as he tugged at her clothes.
She tried in vain to stop him. Clearly, they needed to talk—but the pull to him was too much. Kelli needed him like she needed air or water. He was the only one who made her complete, who made her feel whole. Without Chase, she was just Kelli, an interior designer trying to make a business work. But with him, she was everything.
Some conscious part of her brain told her she was about to have company, but the subconscious part said it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Chase.
Kelli moaned, trying to push against him, but her hands only grabbed at the sweatshirt he wore as she buried her face in his neck, desperate to get a handle on herself. But his rough hands weren’t stopping their assault on her senses, and she whimpered into his skin. Chase kissed lower, bringing the neckline of her dress down to free a breast before attacking with tongue, teeth, suction.
Oh My.
Every pull of his mouth on her nipple sent a shockwave of lust to her core, and she mindlessly ground her hips into his. The sweet, musky scent of Chase and sunshine filled her, making her want things she couldn’t have but would take anyway.
Reading her mind, his skilled fingers attacked her wet heat and Kelli cried out, throwing her head back. Chase’s thick fingers sank into her heat, stretching with familiar sensations. Her body remembered his touch, yet everything was different at the same time. She wanted to sink into the sensations and enjoy them, but some primal part of her brain told her this wasn’t the best time for it. Even as his fingers found her spot and curled into it, pushing against it, stroking her insides …