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Except for the pounding of my heart, screaming that he was here—now.
Damn it.My skin prickled and itched at the anticipation of meeting him. This fated mate shit never goes away, does it?
I glanced around, but the near-full moon showed me only the silhouettes of mangroves, Spanish moss, and a few bats hunting the bugs that hadn't yet sunk into the tall grass for the night.
Focus, dumbass.
Kye's scent faded, and the artifact's draw grew stronger in my head. I could almost visualize it, laying in a tree trunk, burrow, or some other dark place, but close.
Ahead was one of many dilapidated old shacks rotting in the swamp, missing half its clapboard shingles. Part of the roof had caved, leaving the structure a gaped-tooth shell, but that only lended me a fifty-fifty chance that it was empty.
Out here, everything fights to survive.
Even if it had occupants, it was probably just used for making moonshine. But Moonshiners had guns, and my scars tell me I'm not immortal.
I sniffed the air, turned out my headlamp, and closed my eyes, willing my peepers to adjust to the dark interior that the moonlight dared breach. Tiny eyes peered back at me from the shadows—a hundred hidden tiny monsters with unknown intentions.
With a last noisy pull of my boots from the water and muck, I stepped onto the semi-solid ground and made my way inside.
The second my foot passed the cabin’s threshold, the tug of the artifact was overwhelming.
With each step, I tested the rotted floorboards against the possibility of falling through the floor. But miraculously, with little more than a groaning complaint or two at holding my weight, I successfully made my way across the room toward a stack of crates and barrels. Behind them stood two dilapidated sets of cupboards featuring strips of peeling paint clinging to the warped walls.
Then, as I checked my next foot placement, I heard a creak behind me and spun.
Only to come face to face with my ex.
“Fancy seeing you here, Pinky.” He smirked, one hand behind his back, the other hooked in the belt loop of his cutoff jeans. Even if I hated his guts, I couldn't avoid looking there between the corded muscles of his thighs.
Fuck a duck.
But Pinky?
I despised that nickname. Especially now.
And not because I disliked the blush pink tips I’d been adding to my hair for years—but because of the dickhead who used to affectionately call me that before turning my world upside down.
“You lost the privilege to use pet names with me, Kye.” My voice resonated through the rotted shack walls and across the swamp with a steely coldness that silenced the surrounding wildlife.
His leer faded, and I watched him regroup. He struggled to act casual, but I saw the way his pretty eyes darted left the moment I turned toward him.
As if reading my mind, he headed in the direction I predicted, circling the room at the edges and giving me space, or maybe just the weakest floorboards, a wide berth.
I followed him, slowly pivoting, waiting to see what deadly surprise lied behind his back.
Not that he needed a weapon against me. He had teeth and claws to call at will.
I… did not.
But I also wasn’t who I used to be—the weakest pack member.
My hand gripped the hilt of my Bowie knife, ready to strike. Between that and a lifetime absorbing every fighting style I could learn for free or in trade, I was way more dangerous now than Kye could imagine.
He paused and raised both hands playfully, as if signaling peace.
Yeah fucking right.
“What are you doing here? You're the one who's no longer allowed on pack land.” His grin broadened, and he leaned on a barrel—a barrel that called out to me like a fucking honing beacon.
