Mate Bond Read online

  By Shifter thinking, Bowman had a perfect right to sling this woman out. Humans wouldn’t see it that way though.

  The woman started to reach for something in her purse. Pepper spray? A gun? Bowman caught her hand, his growl rumbling across the empty parking lot, vibrating the ground.

  Shit. If Bowman hurt the woman, or even scared her bad enough, the human cops would be all over this place in a heartbeat. Bowman would be dragged away in cuffs spelled to contain Shifters, and probably every Shifter in the roadhouse would be arrested along with him.

  Only one thing to do. Kenzie hurried out of the shadows, making for the two of them. At the last minute, she slowed and pretended to be out for a nonchalant stroll. She put a sway in her hips as she eased herself up to Bowman and draped her arm around his neck.

  The heat of him came to her, along with his wild scent. The strength of him quivering under her touch made Kenzie flush with warmth.

  Bowman’s entire body went rigid. No one touched an alpha when he was at the height of his anger, especially not when he was this close to shifting.

  No one but his mate.

  “Hey, Bowman,” Kenzie said, letting her voice drawl in a sultry way. “You seeing someone else now? I’m going to get jealous.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Kenzie, her arm still around Bowman, pinned the pseudo-groupie with a stare that she hoped showed a hint of feral red.

  The woman backed a step under their collective gazes, and Bowman, thank the Goddess, released the woman’s wrist. Kenzie remained draped over him, pretending not to feel every bit of tension in his body that told her he did not want her there.

  The woman opened her mouth to deliver a final word. Her wolf ears had slid back on her head, and her makeup was running with her sweat. But she apparently thought better of speaking, and turned and walked hurriedly away. Her fake wolf tail waved as she went.

  As soon as she disappeared back into the roadhouse, Bowman spun around. He did it so fast, Kenzie didn’t have time to let go of him.

  She found herself holding six-feet-eight of enraged Shifter. Bowman’s body was tight, his gray eyes almost white with the suppressed change. The wolf in him was furious and wanted to hunt, to bring down and tear apart prey.

  With any other Lupine, Kenzie might laugh and suggest he needed a beer—she’d buy. But Bowman wasn’t going to calm down. While Kenzie didn’t blame him—that woman was up to no good and might be dangerous—he had to stand down, or he might do something that would get them all into trouble.

  Only one thing could soothe a wolf as dominant as Bowman. The touch of a mate.

  Kenzie ran her hands over Bowman’s shoulders, the tension in him incredible. He didn’t want to calm down. He wanted a run.

  Well, he could do that, but not right now. Other people were coming out of the roadhouse, paying no attention to them in the darkness. Some got into trucks and cars to drive home or on to the next bar; others lingered to talk and laugh. Bowman was too close to wild not to try to turn one of them into prey.

  Bowman glared at Kenzie, but she didn’t ease off. She skimmed her hands down his hard chest, feeling his heart beating crazily, his skin hot under his shirt. His growls continued to rumble—if anything, growing louder.

  She kept up her massage, moving her hands in circles on his chest, pressing her body against his. He was incredibly warm in the January cold, his mating heat starting to take over the killing need.

  Bowman seized her wrists in a grip that would have hurt anyone else. “Kenzie, you need to stop.”

  Kenzie flattened herself against him. She felt him with her whole body now, his heartbeat against hers, his breath on her skin, the hardness of his entire body.

  “Not until you can walk inside without throwing people all over the tables.”

  Bowman’s growl rumbled. “I don’t like anyone watching my Shifters.”

  “I get that. But she’s gone.”

  “People like that always come back.”

  “I know.”

  If he’d been anyone else, Kenzie might be tempted to get up in his face, wag her finger at him, bean him with sarcasm or bitchy words, but she knew better than to try it with Bowman. She knew him, and what he’d respond to.

  Bowman’s eyes at least had lost their spark of killing rage. Another spark flared in him, though, and Kenzie knew she was in trouble. Not that she minded. It had been a while. Too long.

  Bowman’s grip on her wrists tightened, his growl returning, but softer now, with a different note. Kenzie responded with a low growl of her own.

  That was all it took. Bowman hauled her against him, arms coming around her to scoop her into him. She saw his eyes, still white gray, before he closed them on his way to parting her lips with a searing kiss. Kenzie bent back under his onslaught, curling her fingers against his chest.

  She wanted this. Every time they came together, Kenzie was so hopeful, not only for the intense pleasure he could bestow, but for what might come of their mating frenzy. Another cub, maybe. Or the mate bond.

  Bowman wanted these things too. He never said so, but she knew.

  Kenzie sank into the kiss, but Bowman broke it all too soon and started pulling her toward the darkness at the edge of the parking lot. He nearly hauled Kenzie off her feet, he moved so fast, but he would never slow his pace for her. She was Lupine, and alpha, and he knew she could keep up with him. He expected it, which was both flattering and frustrating at the same time.

  The parking lot ended in the beginning of a dense woods of old pine trees whose boles rose a hundred feet in the air before they sprouted branches. Kenzie found the rough bark of one at her back as Bowman shoved her against it.

  His mouth came down on hers, his eyes closing again as his kiss turned savage. Bowman jammed his hands to the tree trunk, pinning her in place with his body. His heat embraced her, and his low growls vibrated through her.

  Kenzie’s mating frenzy rose to meet his. They were always like this, unable to come together without wanting to tear into each other. She clutched the back of his shirt as Bowman kissed her, his mouth opening hers. He had her trapped—she couldn’t get away. Not that she wanted to.

  Bowman’s fingers became claws that shredded her new cropped top, bought today. He never touched her skin beneath, but Kenzie’s shirt and bra became so much scrap. She’d be pissed off about that later, but right now, she didn’t care.

  Kenzie plucked at Bowman’s shirt, tight across his shoulders, until Bowman broke the kiss long enough to yank it off.

  She and Bowman came together, skin to skin, the heat of his chest burning her bare flesh. Never mind that it was about thirty degrees outside and their breath steamed in the cold. Kenzie and Bowman were already sweating. They’d burn down the woods if they weren’t careful.

  Kenzie stroked his shoulders and his short black hair, using her touch and her pliant body to soothe him. No one else could touch Bowman when he got this crazed. Only Kenzie. No other Shifter could calm him like she could, which was why they’d ended up becoming mates. They’d done it for the safety of not only their wolf packs but all of Shiftertown.

  Bowman didn’t want calm right now. He yanked Kenzie away from the tree, and she found herself on the ground, though she’d never felt the fall.

  She landed in his arms, both of them now stretched full length on frozen dirt. Snow from last week had melted, leaving mud that had hardened with this temperature drop. The frozen earth pressed against Kenzie’s back while Bowman lay over her, his mouth on her neck.

  His teeth scraped her skin, then she felt the pain of a love bite. Kenzie arched into her mate, needy for him. Bowman’s mouth was a place of fire, hurting and wonderful at the same time. The hard ridge she felt beneath his jeans excited her, and she wanted him.

  He wanted it too. Bowman jerked at the button of her pants, ripping the zipper. He’d never fastened his jeans again, and very soon Kenzie felt his cock, bare and hot, against her abdomen.

  Right here, right now, in this wo
ods with music thumping in the roadhouse and humans in the parking lot. Never mind soothing him. Bowman always made it so exciting.

  He raised his head, his smoke gray eyes light, his breath a snarl in his throat. “Damn you, Kenz,” he whispered.

  Kenzie’s heart thumped in painful and excited need. There was so much between them, and yet so much wrong, that she was never sure how she felt with him.

  Sometimes, when they started this, Bowman would stop, jerk himself from her, and walk away. He’d shift into wolf and depart deep into the woods, returning to their home in Shiftertown after many hours. He’d never abandon them completely; she knew that. Bowman was a leader, and he’d never leave his Shifters to fend for themselves, nor would he leave his family, his son.

  As Kenzie held her breath, waiting to see what he’d do—thrust himself into her or get off and walk away—a growl came out of the woods, one so menacing that both Bowman and Kenzie froze.

  The night around them went deathly still—no rustle of birds or small animals in the undergrowth. It was cold, yes, but animals often foraged for early shoots and overlooked seeds even this late at night. Kenzie had assumed the animals had shut up and hidden because of the two noisy Shifters come to mate on their doorstep.

  Now she realized. There was something out here with them.

  The snarl came again, like a beast in slow anger. Warning now, rather than attacking. Promising it would stop warning soon.

  Kenzie had never heard anything like it before. Shifters made all kinds of sounds—snarling, growling, howling, even shrieking—in anger, fear, mating need, fighting craze. She’d heard it all—Feline, Lupine, and bear.

  This was nothing like that. Nor did it sound like a wild animal, a bear maybe, come down out of the mountains to wander in this woods looking for easier pickings.

  Bowman, in near silence, released Kenzie and got to his feet. He didn’t reach down to help her rise—Bowman knew she’d get up on her own, unhampered, in silence.

  Which she did. They stood together, shoulder to shoulder, peering out into the blackness of the woods, their breaths streaming fog into the night.

  Bowman’s tension said what Kenzie’s did: What the fuck was that? But neither of them spoke; neither moved.

  The growl came again, with a hint of something salivating for its next meal. Something very large.

  Bowman’s voice sounded in Kenzie’s ear, so low it tickled deep inside her, so close that his breath burned. “Go back to the roadhouse. Get everyone inside and have them lock the doors.”

  And what are you going to do? Kenzie wanted to ask. Bowman knew she did, because he added firmly, “Go. Now.”

  Everything Shifter inside Kenzie scrambled to obey when Bowman commanded. She’d been programmed to that from cubhood. She was more dominant than most females out there, and many males too, but a true pack leader like Bowman made her instincts want to stand up and snap off a salute.

  On the other hand, the mate in her needed to shout at him, Are you crazy? You want me to leave you here to face whatever the hell that is alone?

  Bowman had his gaze on her, the hard Shifter stare that made the instincts win over the mate’s worry. At least this time.

  Kenzie also knew that Bowman wanted her gone so that she could look after the others—Shifters and humans alike—while he figured out what this menace was and how to deal with it.

  She glanced at herself. “I can’t go in there,” she whispered, even in the face of his gray white stare. “You tore up my shirt. They have a policy.” She fought the hysterical laugh that came up with the words.

  In a swift and economical move, Bowman swept his T-shirt from the ground and thrust it into her hands. The cloth still held his heat, and his scent.

  Kenzie took the shirt and backed slowly away from him. She didn’t run—whatever was in the woods sounded in the mood for a chase.

  She made it to the edge of the parking lot, the men and women there having already gotten into vehicles and gone. Tears stung her eyes as she pulled on the black T-shirt that still held Bowman’s heat. Once under the glare of the lot’s lights, she could no longer see her mate.

  This was wrong. All wrong. She had to go back to him, to fight with him. Kenzie couldn’t stand by while he stayed to face the danger alone, perhaps to be killed.

  Another human couple came out of the roadhouse, the man and woman wrapped around each other, laughing. There was no doubt what they were leaving the bar to do. The noise from the open door spilled out behind them.

  A rumbling growl came from the woods and rolled over the ground, sweeping all other sound away with it.

  The couple stopped. “Shit,” the guy said. “What the hell was that?”

  Kenzie’s indecision fled, the alpha female in her taking over. “Get back inside,” she snapped in her best commanding voice. “Now.”

  The man and woman looked startled, but obeyed her, their eyes wide with fear.

  Kenzie took one last look at the darkness beyond the parking lot, scenting both Bowman and something overwhelming behind him. Heart racing and aching, she herded the humans into the bar and shut the door on them, then turned back to Bowman.

  She still couldn’t see him, but she heard his snarl. “Kenzie, inside.”

  It was the command of a leader. She needed to help his trackers be his backup, to keep the civilians protected. Bowman knew she’d handle it all better than anybody.

  “Do it.”

  He was no longer trying to be quiet—no point. Kenzie forced herself to stop being sentimental and think like a warrior. She silently offered up a prayer to the Goddess, yanked open the door, and ran into the roadhouse, calling for Cade.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bowman knew exactly when Kenzie closed the door to the roadhouse. Her scent cut off, as did the sound of her voice, and the presence of her. Bowman always knew when Kenzie was near.

  He’d known when he’d dragged the fake groupie out to the parking lot that Kenzie had followed. He’d pulled the stunt of yanking down his jeans because he’d been aware of Kenzie watching from the shadows. He’d wanted to scare the woman in the stupid Lupine ears and tail, but he’d also wanted to challenge Kenzie. He always did. His mate could bring out the worst in him.

  But his challenge had backfired, because Bowman’s mating frenzy had shot high. His hard-on had been for Kenzie alone. The only way to relieve the frenzy had been to get rid of the fake groupie woman and run into the woods with Kenzie to scratch that itch.

  Thank the Goddess for this unknown foe. Best distraction he could hope for.

  Which left the question—what was it?

  Bowman slid off his boots and shucked his jeans and underwear. Naked in his socks, he gazed into the woods, his Shifter sight trying to penetrate the blackness under the trees.

  Nothing. No shadows moving, no eyes. Just the soft snarling of an animal not afraid of the lone Shifter waiting at the edge of the woods.

  Bowman got rid of the socks and let his wolf come. He could shift quickly, though not painlessly, but his tension was so high tonight he barely noticed the ache as his bones changed form.

  The edges of objects curved as his eyes became wolf, colors growing muted but at the same time lighter and more precise. Shifters didn’t necessarily see better than humans, just differently. They could discern things outside the range of human sight, and scent added another layer.

  Whatever was out there stank like a sewer. Bad scent could be used to confuse trackers or disgust them so much they abandoned the prey. Or maybe this thing had simply been spawned in a cesspit.

  Bowman had no desire to put his nose down and follow its trail, but he had to know what he was dealing with. Was it seriously dangerous? Or just smelly?

  The snarl built up into a roar, and something huge charged Bowman. At least, at the place where Bowman had been. He was gone by the time the thing came barreling out of the trees, then he cut back sharply into the woods to draw it away from the roadhouse.

  He needed bac
kup, and lots of it. Kenzie would be organizing that, he knew, letting him get on with the fight. She knew her job. His heart warmed at the thought.

  The thing swung around, following Bowman unerringly between the trees. The growls increased, and underbrush snapped and broke as it came.

  One of the giant trees behind Bowman started to fall toward him. He couldn’t see it clearly in the dark, but he heard the breaking branches and pop of roots, smelled the explosion of sap and resin as a pine tree that had stood strong for hundreds of years now rushed at the ground.

  Bowman sprang out of the way, and the woods shuddered as the tree came down, tangling in its brothers on the way. The tree never made it to the forest floor, but came to a rocking halt above Bowman, trapped in a cradle of close-growing branches.

  Not Bowman’s worry right now. His worry was the enormous thing that had pushed the tree aside to get to him.

  The animal’s stink canceled out the rest of the forest smells, and its shadow cut off all light. Bowman looked up into darkness that contained a flash of red eyes, the glint of giant teeth, and claws that would frighten a feral bear.

  He flung himself out of the way of its plunging fist, his wolf moving fast, but not fast enough. One huge clawed hand caught Bowman’s hindquarters as he leapt away.

  Pain jolted through him—ripped flesh, snapped bone. Bowman’s Collar went off, activating the shock implant that theoretically kept Shifters from violence. Bowman tried to ignore it as he let his momentum carry him away from the creature, but the Collar beat pain into his spine. He stumbled toward the edge of the woods, emerging after an agonizingly long time from under the trees into the roadhouse’s parking lot.

  He realized that if Kenzie brought backup outside, they’d be shredded. He had to warn them. Bowman’s cell phone, though, was in the jeans he’d stripped off and left at the edge of the woods, and the monster chasing him had just stepped on it. He had backup phones, but they were at home, and couldn’t help him now.