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PROLOGUE

Rauf

I’d kill Mestyn if his tail wasn’t already light-years off this planet. I scowled over a bump on the rocky road into New Knossos and cursed the memory of that damned traitor.

What had he been thinking? Kidnapping a woman? The mayor’s woman? We were lucky no one had died.

In the month since that fiasco, my fellow Butchers and I had gone from outcasts to pariahs. Every time one of my men left the ranch, I wasn’t certain they’d come back. And when Remmen or his slimy little deputy came to call, I was never entirely certain it wouldn’t end in bloodshed.

We were supposed to have left the bloodshed behind us. Too bad it was bred in soul deep.

The broken coupling rolled across the truck’s passenger seat. I caught it before it fell into the footwell and shoved it into my coat pocket. All this for a fucking pump. We could keep a field alive or stay out of town, apparently, but we couldn’t do both.

I’d drawn the shortest straw.

I parked near the west market and got out. A male I’d known for years stopped talking when he saw me. His companion turned to look, and I kept walking before either of them could decide I needed to hear his opinion.

At the repair stall, I paid too much for a replacement and turned back toward the truck.

A human woman stood outside the Agency office across the street.

I stopped so abruptly that the male behind me had to step around my shoulder. He muttered something. I barely heard him.

She had a dark braid pulled over one shoulder and a green coat that didn’t quite reach her knees. She was looking toward the end of the street, her face tilted up into the weak sunlight, and I stood there staring at the curve of her cheek.

Who was she?

I hadn’t seen her before. I would have remembered that mouth. Her lower lip was full, and when the wind caught a loose strand of hair against it, she brushed it away with the back of her hand.

My gaze followed her fingers. I wanted to touch her there, run my thumb over that soft lower lip and see if she’d let me lean down for a kiss. She was small enough that I’d have to bend a good distance to reach her. Or she could put her hands on my shoulders while I lifted her.

What the fuck was I doing?

She tucked the loose hair behind her ear and glanced toward the Agency door. I caught myself leaning to the side to keep her face in view.

Then her scent reached me.

I drew it in and couldn’t move. Beneath the woodsmoke and cider and the sharp stink of oil on my hands, she was warm skin and rosemary. I needed another breath before I’d finished the first.

Mate.

My grip tightened around the coupling. I’d never wanted a mate. I’d never gone to that office to ask for a woman, never waited at the port with the other unmated bulls. I had enough trouble getting through a day with the men I already lived with.

But she was standing across the street, and I wanted her close enough to touch.

I wanted to put my mouth against the bit of bare skin above her collar. I wanted her looking up at me, her hand resting on my arm while I bent down to hear what she had to say. I couldn’t make out the color of her eyes from here. That bothered me enough to get me moving.

The Agency door opened before I’d taken two steps.

Korfas ducked through it.

The woman turned, and her face brightened. She smiled at him. A proper smile, wide and pleased, and he came down the steps to stand beside her.

I stopped with one hoof in the street.

Of all the males in New Knossos, it had to be that bastard.

She said something I couldn’t hear. Korfas leaned down to answer, and she laughed.