Kenzie rose abruptly. What was it about Gil that had her jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box? "Maybe you have heartburn. You should go see a doctor."
Gil was up beside her. "I don't, and you know it. Are you sure, Kenz, that you aren't feeling it too?"
He curled his other fist and pressed it to her chest, right between her breasts. Again, the touch wasn't erotic or suggestive, but a gentle press, a friend helping a friend.
The tingling in Kenzie's heart she'd been trying to ignore blossomed into heat. Not sharp heat, but an agreeable warmth that tried to loosen and relax her.
"No." She jerked back in panic, breaking the contact. The tingling receded but didn't go away. "You're a shaman, you said. You're tricking me."
Gil stepped close to her, and Kenzie found herself looking into the eyes of a very strong man, an alpha in his own right. He hid his power behind smiles and a self-deprecating manner, but it was there.
"It's not a trick," Gil said. "It's real. Look inside yourself, Kenzie. You'll see it's true."
"No!" Kenzie backed another step, starting to shake. "I don't have a mate bond with you. I can't have. I can't."
Gil only stood there. The light in the living room was suddenly garish, hurting her eyes. Another being seemed to transpose itself with Gil, looking like him but stained with harsh magic she didn't understand.
"What are you?" Kenzie shouted. "You're one of the fucking Fae, I knew it!"
Gil's face darkened. "I told you I wasn't. Don't insult me. Call me any name you want, but for the Goddess's sake, not Fae."
Kenzie pointed a rigid finger at the front door. "Get out of my house!"
"You've been in denial since the day I met you, Kenzie. Open your eyes and look around." Gil came to her, and Kenzie couldn't move. He smelled of the woods and the night, and a faint tang of magic. "I know it's a lot to take in." He touched her chest again, and Kenzie's breath caught. She felt the heat, and she couldn't pull away. "Think about it awhile. I'll be around when you want to talk."
Kenzie's throat closed up. "Please, go away."
"I'm going, don't worry." Gil leaned forward and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. The little smile he sent her broke her heart.
He left then, disappearing out the door so quickly she barely saw him go. Kenzie was left alone with two mostly filled bottles of beer, a wrinkled manila envelope, and confused thoughts whirling through her brain.
She couldn't have formed the mate bond with Gil. She couldn't have. She barely knew him. He wasn't Shifter.
Cold reason made her discard the arguments as quickly as they came. Shifters could form the mate bond the instant they met their true mate. They could form it with humans and half humans-hell, the Guardian of the Austin Shiftertown had mate bonded with a Shifter who was half Fae.
Kenzie loved Bowman. He was her mate. It would kill her to leave him. It would kill Ryan.
No. She couldn't. It couldn't happen. Not like this.
Gil had said she'd been in denial since she'd met him, and maybe she had. Kenzie had felt something when she'd sat in Gil's car, a feeling that she could talk to him as though they were old friends, even though she'd never seen him before in her life.
Of course Kenzie denied the mate bond with him. It was all wrong.
Her thoughts went to Bowman, smiling at her in the darkness. We're good together, you and me.
The memory of his rumbling voice, the warm weight of him as he lay on her in the woods, broke her. Kenzie collapsed to the sofa, all strength leaving her, and she cried as she'd never cried in her life.
* * *
Cristian wandered Shiftertown, both irritated and amused at the carryings-on of the Shifters around him. A person would think Shifters never had sex except on mating ceremony nights, but this was not the case. Shifters used any excuse to do the deed.
Cristian was no celibate, but he chose his partners carefully. He was pack and clan leader, and female Shifters were always looking for a high-ranking male to give them cubs. Cristian was older than many of the Shifters in this town, but it didn't matter. To a mate-seeking female, he was a walking target.
But since his mate had gone, so long ago now, taking half his heart with him, Cristian had kept his relationships physical, nothing more. The animal in him needed to relieve basic needs, but he never let things go beyond that.
His beloved Melita had been his life. They'd had forty years together before she'd been shot by a human hunter, mistaken for one of the wolves that had been attacking livestock on nearby farms. She'd died in his arms, and Cristian had kissed her lips before the Guardian had sent her to dust.
Cristian had taken his vengeance on the humans who'd killed her, then disappeared into the wilds for a long time to grieve. Kenzie had found him out there and persuaded him to come home.
She'd been a cub, orphaned, alone, a leggy little wolf with rumpled hair. Adorable. Cristian had followed her back and tried to continue his life.
Now Kenzie was in pain, and he knew it. Bowman was a good leader-Cristian hated to admit it-but Kenzie hurt whenever she looked at the asshole. Cristian would have to do something about that.
And about all the crap that was going on around here. If Bowman didn't get it done, and fast, Cristian would do it for him.
In fact, he'd start now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bowman returned from patrolling Shiftertown once the sun was rising and Shifters were crawling home. Some slept where they dropped. Lumps of fur littered the ground, Shifters snoring it off.
Bowman had realized long ago that being leader meant he didn't always get to join in the revelry. He protected the perimeter so that his Shifters could let loose and enjoy themselves.
Kenzie often patrolled with him, the two of them sharing the quiet while Shiftertown partied behind them. Now that the party was over, Bowman headed home, intending to make up for missing out-with Kenzie. Ryan was safely with Afina, and they'd have the house to themselves.
When he entered the kitchen through the back door, all was silent. The old-fashioned percolator coffeepot sat on the counter, its lid off, the scent of cold coffee lingering in the room. The coffee table he saw through the open space to the living room held two open bottles of beer, but no one seemed to be around. Bowman did a quick inhale and scented human male over the familiar scents of the house. A particular human male. Gil.
The door to the bedroom he shared with Kenzie was closed. Bowman strode immediately to it, his killing instincts flaring high. His Collar bit a warning spark deep into his skin, but he ignored it.
He was sick to his stomach as he reached for the doorknob. He did not want to open that door and find Gil with Kenzie, but at the same time he needed to let the world know that any man who touched his mate would be ripped in half.
Bowman swallowed bile, ignored a second spark from his Collar, and entered the room.
Kenzie sat cross-legged in the middle of the unrumpled bed. She was dressed in jeans and a tank top, her arms bare, though the room was cool. She had a wad of crumpled tissues in her hand, and she didn't look up when Bowman came in.
"Kenzie, what's wrong?" he asked, his heart pounding. His Collar quieted, but his fears surged. "What happened?"
Kenzie raised her head. Her eyes were red, her nose swollen, her cheeks tear-streaked. "Gil." She started to say more, but a sob caught in her chest.
Bowman came all the way into the room, to the bed. "What did he do to you? Did he touch you? I'll kill him." He felt faint surprise that Kenzie hadn't turned a man who assaulted her into so much raw hamburger, but he waited for her to explain.
Kenzie shook her head. "It's not his fault. Killing him won't help."
"What isn't his fault?" Bowman put his fingers under Kenzie's chin and forced her to look up at him.
She didn't want to. She tried to turn her head and avoid his gaze, something Kenzie simply did not do. She always glared Bowman down, and be damned to him.
Kenzie finally looked at him, her eyes red with weeping. "Bowman, do you feel the mate bond?"
She'd never asked him straight out before. When they'd gone through the mating ceremonies and spent their first night together as mates, they'd watched each other closely, to see, even teased about it a little. Which of them would be the first to feel it?
As days stretched to weeks, and then months, they'd stopped talking about it. If it happened, then it would happen. The Goddess bestowed blessings in her own time. They'd stopped talking about having cubs as well.