Inside it smells like engine oil and dry wood and something metallic.A yellow tractor gleams in the dim light.Shelves of equipment line every wall.A single bulb hangs from the ceiling.
I press my back against the wooden shelving unit and stare at door and think, with rising panic:
Andrew Ward.
Andrew Wardis my fated mate.
I wait for some kind of cosmic correction.A sign that the bond has misfired, that I'm having some kind of stress-induced hallucination.
Nothing.Just the steady insistent pull of it, the pulsing awareness, the erotic tingle sweeping from my scalp to my toes.
I struggle for words and finally find one.
“No.”
Chapter Two
Andrew
I approved the business arrangement with the plant mages three days ago, with no idea of what I was getting myself into.
Silas Romero and his niece, here to work the crops, straightforward professional agreement.I reviewed the terms and signed off on it.How could I have known what fate was about to throw at me?
I remembered Henrietta as a neglected, underfed ten-year-old, who followed me around firing questions at me every time she ran into me in town.Farmer’s markets, festivals, holidays, she was always there, unsupervised, fixing her green-eyed gaze on me.
Just to get her off my back I’d secretly pay various people to go deliver food to her, telling her it was leftover and they didn’t want to have to throw it away.She’d scamper off and gulp it down like she hadn’t eaten in days.Maybe she hadn’t.She wasn’t from my pack.I couldn’t let myself think about it.Feeding her was a strategic move for me, not an act of caring.
I always made sure she thought she was the one doing them a favor by taking care of leftovers.She wouldn’t have accepted pity-food, but this way she’d be fed and also distracted and I could make my escape.
That little girl is gone, replaced by a willowy, brunette haired beauty with plump pink lips and eyes the color of emerald.
Streaks of gold run through her caramel hair, catching the light.It falls past her shoulders and tumbles halfway down her back.She’s wearing a white sundress with embroidered sunflowers, and scuffed brown boots, and when she turns to look at me, an expression of shock widens those emerald eyes.
The feeling hits me like a freight train, shaking me down to my bones, and I take half a step back.
What am I feeling?
Recognition.Certainty.Possession.
Oh, hell no.Not her.She is not ours, she never was, never will be.She’s the scrawny runt with the father who I caught in the forest doing a deal that would have endangered us all.Her family are toxic, the taint of Marvin Romero’s crime clinging to them like a sulfurous cloud.I am the Alpha, the man who is responsible for not just his pack’s safety, but their reputation in the shifter world.
Silas holds his hand out to me, and I shake it firmly.“Silas, good to see you again.”He manages a smile.He remembers what I did – and there’s nothing he can do about it.That’s probably not a great position for him.
Henrietta murmurs an excuse and vanishes into the equipment shed.
Fortunately, Cole and Jesse are throwing punches at each other and they haven’t realized what’s happening yet.They would give me endless grief.And our mother might not be happy if I came back with my idiot brothers’ pelts dragging behind me.
I don’t know why not.Their wolves have very nice pelts, and they would grow their fur back…eventually.
"Give me a minute," I say to no one in particular, and follow her.
The shed smells like oil and dry wood.Henrietta is standing with her back against the shelving unit, arms crossed, trying to murder me with the heat of her gaze as I stalk over to her.
"You’re a plant mage, right?Nothing else?”I bark at her.I am deliberately being offensive.I want her to hate me.And I want to hate her right back.
She narrows her eyes at me."I'm sorry?"
"Legitimate question.Because what I'm currently experiencing feels like a fated mate bond activating.Did you cast a love spell on me?Are you a love mage?”
