Mating Instinct: A Moon Shifter Novel (10 page)

Fear spiked inside her, sharp and jagged. Its cloying scent nearly suffocated her, but she couldn’t smother it or hide it from them. Her throat closed up impossibly tight as she fought to breathe. She’d had her freedom taken from her a month ago. Living on the ranch wouldn’t exactly be a hardship, but she couldn’t be forced into anything. Especially not when she was still suffering from nightmares. With everyone’s extrasensory abilities, there was no telling who would hear her if she cried at night. There was no way that was happening. It was one thing to wake up crying and sweating and terrified from memories that wouldn’t leave her alone and it was another for others to be aware of her weakness. No, thank you.

Before she could respond, Jayce cut in. “I’ll stay at December’s house with her. I’ll be her shadow and teach her about pack laws. She won’t ever be out of my sight.”

“Like this morning?” Connor diverted his attention to Jayce.

“You know why I was gone this morning,” Jayce snapped.

The testosterone in the air was worse than it had been during her earlier spike of fear. The scent helped her to get herself under control. She cleared her throat. “I don’t need anyone watching over me.”

Connor stared at her hard. “I don’t care what you want or what you think you need. You have two choices. Live at the ranch or have Jayce live with you temporarily. Then once he’s gone, you’ll move to the ranch permanently unless you wish to find another pack.”

Gone? For some reason Kat hadn’t even thought about Jayce leaving. He wasn’t part of Connor’s pack. Kat knew that, but it just hadn’t registered with her that he would be leaving again—probably once they’d gotten rid of the APL faction here. Or at least that was her guess. She still wasn’t completely sure why he was back in Fontana. He was so private about what he did for the Council. And she knew that she wasn’t the sole reason. Or even the reason at all. So why did she feel like he’d be betraying her—
abandoning her
—when he left? She shouldn’t even care about him after the way he’d lied to her, but deep down she liked his presence in her life. She also hated it. It was a weird dichotomy. Despite their history and Jayce’s tendency to put her on edge while simultaneously pissing her off, she knew he had her back. The thought of him leaving tore a hole inside her gut. “I’m not—”

“Choose.” There was so much raw power in that one word—an order—she understood why Connor was Alpha.

Something bone-deep inside her wanted to hide as she felt his strength ripple over her. “Jayce can stay with me.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

Sleeping under the same roof as Jayce would be torturous, but it was better than being cooped up on the ranch and feeling like a prisoner. At least with Jayce she would have some semblance of control over herself and her comings and goings. On the ranch everyone would know her business. That thought made her shudder. With the exception of December, Liam, and Aiden, she hardly knew anyone else. But the pack knew how she’d been found and that she’d been turned because she’d been at death’s door. She didn’t want to be the subject of gossip. What happened to her hadn’t been her fault. She knew that on an intellectual level. But that didn’t make the nightmares any easier and she refused to be around a bunch of strangers who would pity her or look at her differently.

“Fine. What did the cops want with you?” Connor switched topics so smoothly, his demeanor toning down, it surprised her.

She shot Jayce a quick glance before looking at Connor. “They wanted to know my whereabouts two nights ago. I left a bar with this guy, a human, but I never went inside his house.” Feeling almost guilty at the thought of betraying his presence there, she didn’t mention Jayce.

Her Alpha nodded. “I know. Jayce told me.”

Okay, so she had no reason to feel guilty. “Oh. Well, the guy is dead. Ripped apart, actually.” Even remembering what those pictures looked like made her stomach heave. “After hours of going around in circles with their questioning I finally told them I was leaving if they didn’t tell me what they wanted. They thought I was involved with Scott’s—that was his name—murder. So I offered to give them my DNA.”

Both men swore at the same time. Surprised, she looked back and forth between them. “What’s wrong with that? I didn’t do anything to that guy.”

“We don’t ever give our DNA to cops unless they have a court order.” There was no room for argument in Connor’s voice.

“But why not if I’m innocent?”

“Pack law and Council law.” Connor’s jaw clenched tightly. “If you’re ever questioned by the police again, call me or him. He’s the lawyer for the entire pack.” He handed her a white business card with simple black lettering listing a pricey attorney’s name that she recognized. Even her father couldn’t get this guy on retainer.

She didn’t understand Connor’s reasoning, but she didn’t press him further.

“What else did they want to know?” Jayce asked.

Kat filled them in on everything, including her lie about walking home by herself. Jayce and Connor were both pissed that she’d lied because someone might have seen Jayce, but she hadn’t been thinking about that. She’d only been thinking about protecting Jayce. She wanted to ask him if he’d been involved with Scott’s death, but she decided to wait until Connor was gone. She might be angry with Jayce for a lot of things, but she wouldn’t throw him under the bus. Since there was so much she still didn’t understand about shifter rules and regulations, she figured keeping her mouth shut was the best thing at the moment.

After Connor dropped them off at December’s house, Kat couldn’t wait until they were inside to start questioning Jayce. “Did you get rid of all those clothes?”

He nodded as he shut the front door behind them. “And the weapons. Why did you go with the cops this morning?”

Starving after being cooped up all day, she shrugged and headed for the kitchen. “They had questions for me.”

As she started to open the refrigerator door, his big hand landed right by her head, keeping it shut. With her back to him, she couldn’t see his expression, but there was an odd scent coming from him. It wasn’t lust, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It was dark and rich but she’d never smelled it before. And it put her on edge in a way she couldn’t explain, making her tense.

“I know your father taught you better than that. You didn’t have to go with them. Or answer the door, for that matter.” His voice was a low purr next to her ear.

She tried to fight the shiver that twined through her, but it was useless. And considering that Jayce’s chest was pressed up against her back, she knew he had to feel it too. “My Jeep wasn’t here and you were gone. I didn’t know when you were coming back and I didn’t want them to see you.”

“You also lied to them about my presence at that guy’s house. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were trying to protect me,” he murmured so close to her ear that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d sucked her earlobe between his teeth.

Even thinking about him doing that made her knees turn to jelly. But she couldn’t let him know. If he sensed any weakness, he’d pounce. After that kiss yesterday she couldn’t afford to let her guard down around him. She might not want him in trouble with the police, but that didn’t mean she planned to let him back into her life. Steeling herself, she snorted, dismissing his statement. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was looking out for myself.”

That rich scent intensified and wrapped around her, flooding all her senses as if he were actually embracing her. Her eyes drifted shut as he pushed closer for an instant. The feel of all that strength behind her made her want to turn around and wrap her arms around his neck. Press her lips to his. Feel his chest pressing against her own. Give in to her cravings. It would be so easy. He’d already made it clear she could come to him anytime she wanted sexual release. Her lower abdomen tightened as she envisioned them tangled together, sweaty and out of breath while he gave her the kind of pleasure she’d only ever known with him.

Then he pulled away and she jerked back to reality. Jayce left the kitchen. She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but she eventually opened the fridge door. She stared at the contents without really seeing anything. She’d almost given in to him. What was the matter with her? She needed Jayce to help her train. Nothing more. As long as she remembered that, she’d be able to hold on to her self-control.

Chapter 6

B
rianna steered her car into the parking lot of Gwen’s Bakery. According to December, they had the best pastries in town. Not that Brianna cared one way or another. She was here for one purpose: to make contact with the wife of an APL member.

As a member of the Fianna, or fae warriors, Brianna had certain mental capabilities. Her strongest skill was influencing some humans’ thoughts for brief periods of time, but nothing on the scale that vampires could. She certainly couldn’t erase memories and replace them with new ones, though she wished she could. Still, she could hold her own in battle.

But that wasn’t why she’d been sent undercover by her leaders. She’d been chosen because of her gender and appearance. Unlike other fae warriors, who were unusually tall and graceful, she was petite and nonthreatening in appearance. She might hate that she stood out so blatantly among her own people, but it was much easier for her to blend in among the humans.

Her two older brothers were angry that she’d decided to come back to Fontana, but luckily their rulers dismissed their concerns. Only one hundred years old, she was centuries younger than her brothers, but tired of being coddled. She’d gone undercover on her own and even though that monster Adler had been a constant drain on her mental capabilities, she had her strength back now. More importantly, she’d learned how humans thought. Unlike the black-and-white world of the fae, the world of humans was colored in shades of gray. So many were easily fueled by hatred, ignorance, love, passion, and a million other emotions. It made them unpredictable at times, but to her they were absolutely fascinating.

As she opened the glass door, a little bell jingled above her, but Brianna ignored it. Her focus was solely on the brunette in the frumpy clothes pouring creamer into her medium-sized cup of coffee. The same as she’d done yesterday.

As soon as Connor had given her that list of names and addresses, she’d gone hunting, and what she’d found was a possible way in again. Most of the male APL members she’d checked out weren’t married, so her pool of targets was very limited. Of the few who were married, she’d found only one easy target. But first she had to befriend this woman. Jackie Anderson.

Brianna headed for the counter where extra napkins, creamers, straws, and sugars were. Then she stumbled in her boots and collided with the woman, effectively knocking her coffee over.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman said.

The fact that she apologized when the fault had been completely Brianna’s reinforced her decision to target this woman. After watching her yesterday Brianna had noticed an inherent loneliness about her. She’d come to the bakery in the morning, gotten coffee and a bagel and stared out the window, simply watching people pass for hours. The loose jeans and oversized sweater did nothing for the woman’s small frame and almost seemed to be a shield from the outside world.

“The fault is completely mine. Let me get you another drink.” When Brianna smiled, the other woman gave her a tentative smile in return and Brianna found herself experiencing a totally human emotion. Guilt.

She didn’t like using people, especially someone who seemed almost broken, but she had no choice. This group had to be stopped before their influence spread. So far Ireland was untouched, but the fae hadn’t remained strong for centuries by ignoring problems. Eliminating the APL was a priority. If she had to pretend to be friends with someone, well, she’d certainly done a lot worse in the past.

* * *

Kat stepped out of December’s house, battling the continuous guilt that flowed through her. She and Jayce had come to the ranch well over an hour ago. She’d assumed he’d be having dinner with her, December, and Liam, but he’d walked her to the door of their home and then left after telling her that he had something to do. Of course he hadn’t given her any details, so she’d stayed and had dinner with her friends. Neither of them knew she’d taken photos of that list of APL members with her phone and e-mailed them to herself. And she hated that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach—the one that told her she was a liar. But the animal inside her ruthlessly shoved her feelings aside. She was going to bring down the APL any way she knew how. There was no room for guilt right now.

As she trekked toward the barn she waved at a few of the pack members out walking. Some of the males were coming in from the fields and woods, no doubt from patrolling, and a few females were sitting on their porches talking with each other. Deep inside, Kat craved fitting in with this group of shifters, but she was too afraid to put herself out there. Growing up she’d never had a lot of friends—who in their right mind wanted to let their kids be friends with an arms dealer’s daughter? Forget about having relationships. Most men had been afraid to approach her and the ones who hadn’t been afraid had just wanted an in to her father’s business.

Until Jayce.

He hadn’t been afraid of her father in the least and he hadn’t needed her as a contact to get to know her father. Jayce had simply approached him on his own. And then he’d approached her. It had taken months, but she’d finally agreed to go out with him.

He’d been so arrogant and infuriating, but he’d intrigued her like no other man ever had. She’d only agreed to go out with him in an effort to prove to herself that she could handle it, that she wouldn’t get tangled up with him. How wrong she had been. Some days it felt like going out with him had been the biggest mistake of her life. If she hadn’t done that, she would never have known the pain of leaving him. That had been worse than the torture she’d endured, because it just wouldn’t heal. Even though it had been her decision to break up, she felt as if someone had ripped her heart out of her chest with their bare hands. Unfortunately the damn thing had just kept on beating. Moving to Fontana and starting fresh hadn’t made a difference either. She couldn’t outrun her feelings.

Gritting her teeth, she shook her head. Thinking about the past served no purpose. She just wanted to go home, take a hot bath, and sleep. Even though part of her hated the thought of sharing a roof with Jayce, another part of her reveled in it. Last night she’d actually slept soundly. She couldn’t help but wonder if her animal side had felt safe for the first time since her attack. She didn’t want to give him that much credit, but she wasn’t stupid. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she hadn’t had any nightmares last night when she’d suffered them every night for a month before that.

As she entered the barn, she froze. Jayce was on top of Erin, straddling the she-wolf’s petite body. Something sharp pierced Kat’s heart. The burning sensation spread through her chest like acid. She fought to breathe. When he turned those gray eyes on her, she was locked in position. Even though she ordered her feet to move, they wouldn’t. Trapped by that penetrating stare, it was like she wore concrete boots that forced her to stay in place, to endure the torture of seeing him with another woman. Her inner wolf screamed at her to attack the other female. The impact of the emotion slammed through her body. She needed to get away before she lost control. But she couldn’t move.

Jayce’s head tilted slightly to the side, as if he was confused by her arrival. Guess he hadn’t expected her so soon. And she hadn’t expected him to be fooling around with someone else. She might not have any claim on him, but after he’d told her to come to him for sex, she’d just assumed he wasn’t seeing anyone else. How utterly stupid she’d been. Bile rose in her throat. She needed to get out of there.

Before she could take a step back, Erin twisted underneath him and slammed her elbow across his face. At that moment Kat realized that Jayce hadn’t been getting intimate with Erin—they were
training
. He’d had a wooden sparring baton pressed against Erin’s neck. Kat just hadn’t noticed it. All she’d seen was Jayce on top of another woman. She hated that she couldn’t un-see it either. Something raw and primitive festered inside her as that vision played over and over in her head. She had no right to care what he did with other women. So why did an annoying voice in the recesses of her subconscious scream
mine
?

Now he was flat on his back and Erin had a giant grin on her face as she pressed a similar-looking baton to his throat. “Way to lose your concentration,
teacher
.”

Seeing the two of them so relaxed together made the dagger already embedded in Kat’s heart twist. It also gave her the much-needed ability to step back. Turning away from them, she left the barn and headed for one of the fields to go for a run in wolf form. She thought she heard Jayce curse behind her, but she ignored the sound.

Being near him right now wasn’t good for her sanity. She couldn’t believe she’d let the sight of him with Erin affect her. Obviously nothing had been going on between them, but for all she knew Jayce had someone else waiting for him. Or had been with a dozen women since they’d broken up. He was a very sexual male, and even though he’d been absolutely faithful when they’d been together, she didn’t doubt that he’d found someone else to warm his bed since they broke up.

The thought of that made the dagger not only twist but shred her insides. The blood drained from her face as unwanted visions swamped her. Jayce wasn’t hers anymore and it was something she needed to remind herself of. He’d said she could come to him for sex.

Sex.

Nothing more. Considering that she didn’t want anything else from him either, why did she care so much if he was screwing other women?

Picking up her pace, she sprinted until she reached the tree line. Then she stripped and left her clothes in a neat pile by a giant oak tree. If she didn’t expend this raging energy inside her, she was likely to snap and do something stupid. Like start a fight with Erin for no reason. Thanks to her higher body temperature now that she was a shifter, the cold didn’t affect her as much as it had when she’d still been human.

Aiden had told her that those who had been turned into shifters as opposed to being born shifters had to really concentrate to undergo the change from human to animal, but Kat had never had that problem. The moment she let go of her constant efforts at mental control, her inner beast took over. The change flowed over her with a violent intensity, forking through her like jagged lightning, hitting all her nerve endings.

Just like the other times she’d shifted, the pain was short-lived, soon replaced by a pleasurable, soothing sensation erupting inside her. She was suddenly sharply aware of her surroundings. Because it was winter there weren’t many forest animals in plain sight, but she thought she scented a deer nearby. Even though the instinctive part of her wanted to hunt the other animal down, her human side actually laughed. She couldn’t kill Bambi if she wanted to live with herself. The other rich, earthy smells of the forest soothed her most primal side. Patches of snow covered the ground, but she barely felt the cold beneath her paws as she began running over dried grass and foliage.

Jumping over fallen branches, she felt the wind roll over her with abandon. She’d never understood it before she’d been turned, but running provided one of the few times she felt utterly free. Nothing mattered as she ran. She could even pretend it hadn’t bothered her to see Jayce on top of another woman. Too bad that was a lie. Her stomach still ached in a way she hated and could barely understand. She shouldn’t want Jayce as much as she did.

Despite everything that had happened, she couldn’t get him out of her system. Not with the memories she held on to. They suffocated her to the point where she wanted to throw caution to the wind and go to bed with him again. Just to have a taste. Maybe it would help her exorcise him from her mind. He couldn’t be as good as she remembered. Yeah, that was a lie too. He might have been her first lover, but she wasn’t stupid. The way he’d played her body, the things he’d made her feel . . . it had been amazing. Since she’d also been dumb enough to fall in love with him, the sex had been that much better.

As she came upon a fallen oak tree she jerked to a halt. It looked as if it had been ripped from the ground. But by what? Deep striations—claw marks, she realized—encircled the giant trunk. Nothing human could have done this, and she didn’t think any normal animal could have either.

Moving closer, she realized she scented someone familiar. She’d recognize his spicy, earthy smell anywhere. There was a slight underlying whiff of cedar that made the scent unmistakable.

Jayce.

All over the area and all around the fallen tree. Had he done this? If she’d been in her human form, she would have frowned at the thought. As she circled the tree she felt another presence nearby. Then she heard what sounded like footsteps—of a horse.

It was Jayce. Despite the fading scent around the tree, the all-natural aroma of him teased her senses.

She waited by the stump until he rode through the thicket of trees. Looking like an incredibly sexy cowboy, he galloped right for her but abruptly stopped and looped the horse’s reins around a low-hanging branch of a sycamore tree. Wearing faded jeans, now dirty from his recent sparring session, and a beat-up leather jacket he’d had as long as she’d known him, he walked toward her. Heart in her throat, she stood silently while he crouched in front of her.

The look he gave her was indescribable. Some foreign emotion she’d never seen played across his face. She couldn’t define it even in her animal form when everything was so much clearer. It almost looked like yearning, but . . . that couldn’t be right.

He reached his hand out, slowly, waiting for her acquiescence before softly petting her head. His raw strength was undeniable, but the feel of him touching her so gently put her at ease. Which was crazy. She wanted to keep running, to expend all her anger and energy until her legs ached and she could barely breathe. But with him stroking her head, she felt oddly calm.

“When you were taken, I tried to find you.” His words were rough, uneven, and she wondered if he would be saying them if she had been in her human form. Moving from his crouch, he sat on the ground and continued to pet her.