Never His Mate: a Rejected Mates Shifter Romance (Claws and Fangs Book 1)

Call me a fucking coward because, well, I am.

Because it’s a choice between walking through Muncie naked or being a wolf, of course my wolf wins out. I take back alleys, trying to avoid getting spotted by any vamps or humans. I don’t want to have to explain what a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound blonde wolf is doing stalking her way through the Fang City, especially since I smell more like Ryker than I do myself now.

The first few blocks, I throw looks over my shoulder, checking to see if Ryker’s following me. I tell myself that it’s a good thing that he isn’t. He’s giving me the choice, just like he’s said for days that he would, and right now I choose to be alone.

Unfortunately, when my wolf scrabbles all the way up the fire escape, I realize that that isn’t possible. Though I’d hoped that Roman put Aleks back on patrol and I’d be returning to an empty apartment, I can feel his powerful aura prickling at my fur even when I’m still a block away.

I’ve never really noticed how easily I was able to sense Aleks until the one time I don’t want to see him. Isn’t that just my luck?

Well. Walk of shame, here I come.

He’s not in the living room. For all of about two seconds, I hope I was wrong. That I only picked up on the scent lingering from before he left.

And then I enter the hall, trying to make it to my room, and Aleks steps out of his.

One sniff. That’s all it takes. One sniff and he knows where I’ve been and what I’ve done.

Who I’ve done.

“Oh, Gem.”

I refuse to apologize. Mainly because I’m still a wolf, but also because I never let him think that I wanted him like this. And maybe Aleks was right the other night. Maybe some part of me did crave Ryker’s attention, but I’ve had it now and, hopefully, I was right when I said that we got it out of our system.

Claws crossed again.

Still, just because I never promised him anything, that doesn’t mean that I wanted to hurt Aleks. And he is hurt. I can see it on his face, taste it in the way his icy scent changes. Somehow, he goes even colder, which is such a contrast to the heat of an alpha shifter, it makes my wolf let out a soft whine.

Then, purposely looking away from him, I pad the rest of the way to my room. I push on the door, walking in as a wolf, before shifting back to my skin.

I stick my head out. I probably have grass in my hair, dirt on my skin, but I don’t give a shit.

“If he comes here, don’t let him in. I don’t want to see him.”

That’s all I have to say. It doesn’t matter that Aleks clearly knows that I’ve been with Ryker. It’s my choice. Even my vampire roommate is always saying that.

And now I choose to pretend it never happened.

He nods, still frowning though I notice his eyes have bled over to red, almost as if he relishes the idea of standing between Ryker and me.

“Whatever you want, Gem.”

I close the door and, putting my back against it, turn the lock.

It won’t keep either supe out, but I feel better for it anyway.

It’s a start.

My first thought is to hop in the shower. If it’s not bad enough that I can still feel the ghost of Ryker’s hand on my skin, the fact that his scent is embedded in every pore has me wondering if I overreacted. But then my wolf snaps at me, warning me against showering off her mate, and I don’t have the strength to fight my other half.

Staying naked isn’t working for me, though. With a sigh, I push off of the door and shuffle toward my dresser. I’m reaching for my underwear drawer when I notice Aleks’s fang attached to the golden chain stretched out on the top of the dresser.

During my walk of shame before, I also noticed that he had repaired the splintered glass coffee table in the time since I left.

Peace offerings from my vamp roommate. That’s got to be what they are.

Lovely.

I won’t put that necklace back on yet, but I won’t rebuff his attempts to repair our friendship. Maybe it won’t be as easy as changing out the cracked glass in the coffee table, but it’s another start. So, after I yank on some clean panties, I pull on a fresh pair of jeans and shove the necklace in my back pocket.

Since I don’t plan on leaving my room anytime soon, I skip putting on a bra. Instead, I just grab the nearest shirt I can find, then reach for the phone I had left on the charger before I went searching for Ryker what seems like a lifetime ago now.

I’ve been putting off this call for too long. I probably would’ve called my mother on Friday when I noticed it was getting close to the full moon, but I hadn’t, and since then I’ve been avoiding it. I saw I had a missed call from her yesterday, but I ignored it.

I can’t keep on doing that.

If Mom doesn’t hear from me before tomorrow night—before the full moon—then she’ll have Paul send one of his enforcers into Muncie to find me, and that’s the last thing I need.

It’s the agreement we made when I told her that I left the Mountainside Pack. When I moved to Accalia, it was the first time in my life that we were apart, and she only let me go because Paul convinced her that me mating Ryker was a good thing. And while she understood why I had to leave after he rejected me, she couldn’t accept that I wouldn’t go back to the Lakeview Pack until I reminded her it would be the first place they looked.

Of course, then I had to tell her that I kind of, sort of let Ryker’s pack council discover I was an alpha, and that put the end to her arguments. So long as I check in every month, she lets me live on my own. She’s so worried that another wolf will force me to become their mate. The Luna Ceremony only takes place during the full moon, though. If I survive it, then I don’t have to worry about her worrying about me until the next one.

So I call her every month like clockwork. The conversations aren’t overly long. She tells me about my old pack, and I tell her about Aleks and the bar. We don’t talk about me being a lone wolf. And Ryker? He’s number one on the no-no list.

I insist. I know she keeps hoping I’ll go back to Accalia, if only because having an Alpha for a mate is an added layer of protection, but after he rejected me? I couldn’t. And when Mom saw how much it hurt me to confess that, she dropped it. If I ever wanted to mention my old intended mate, it would be up to me.

For a year, I refused to bring up Ryker—until now.

She’s my mom. As soon as she answers, I feel tears well up in my eyes. I don’t expect her to pat my head, fix my mistakes, or tell me that everything’s going to be okay, but just hearing her voice makes me feel like it will anyway.

She can immediately tell that something’s wrong.

“Gemma, baby. You don’t sound like yourself. Is everything okay?”

That’s all it takes. It’s like holding back the wind. One hint of her concern and I’m spilling my guts out to her.

From the moment Ryker walked back into my life all the way until I confess what I just walked away from, I tell my mom everything.

She doesn’t judge me. Honestly, she doesn’t say much at all. She listens, which is what I need, and she offers soft, nonsense replies that make me feel so much better as I struggle to work through my emotions.

“—and he says that I’m his. And that’s the thing, Mom. I was. I always thought I was. He’s my fated mate, but what if I’m not his?” There. The dark, secret fear I’ve grappled with for too, too long. “He didn’t choose me. How could he reject me like that if he’s my fated mate?”

“Ah, baby. Haven’t you figured it out by now?” My mom has never lost the hint of her midwestern drawl. Though we’ve lived on the East Coast ever since we left my birth pack out West—and I don’t even think I have one—Mom’s accent is the same as it’s always been. I close my eyes as her words wash over me. It’s home. “Fated mates are a wonderful thing, but they’re not everything.”

My eyes spring open again. “I know.”

And I do. Mom’s relationship with Paul is proof of that. Jack Walker is her fated mate, but that didn’t stop him from taking his frustration out on her when she was forced to live with him. A powerful Alpha, my omega mother should’ve been able to temper his lusts, but the Wicked Wolf isn’t just any alpha. He’s a fucking sociopath, and it wasn’t fair for anyone to think that my sweet, gentle mom could save him. When she was still trapped as his mate, she could barely save herself; the most she could do was avoid the Luna Ceremony every full moon.

Until I came along. And, omega or not, you don’t mess with a female’s pup. She put up with his cruelty for years but, the first time he picked me up by the scruff and threatened to drown me for snapping at him, my mom showed that even an omega wolf shifter can turn feral.

She saved me. She sacrificed so much, too, and if she could survive that, I can survive Ryker Wolfson.

But do I want to? That thought has been beating at my brain since I ran from him. Why am I putting up a fight? Sure, he rejected me once upon a time, but I’m fighting too hard against something that was put into motion more than eleven years ago.

And then I hear my mom sigh.

My wolf perks her ears up. “Mom? Everything alright on your end?”

“Your dad’s here. He wants to tell you something. Is that okay? It’s about Ryker.”

Honestly, at this point, I’m not sure there’s anything anyone could say about Ryker that would surprise me.

“Uh. Yeah. Sure.”

“Hold on.” There’s some static as she hands him the phone before a deep voice booms, “Hey, Kitten.”

I swallow a laugh. Only Paul Booker would think it’s funny to call an alpha wolf shifter kitten as a nickname. “Hey, Dad.”

“Sorry for overhearing, but you know how your mom is. She had you on speakerphone⁠—”

From behind him, I can hear Mom explain how it bothers her wolf to keep the phone pressed to her ear. I get it. If I didn’t live with another supe with crazy good hearing, I might do the same.

“It’s okay. What’s up? What did you want to say?”

“Janelle?” he says, calling for my mom. “Is it alright if I tell her?”

My heart aches a little to hear how he consults my mom with such respect in his voice. Paul might not have been Mom’s fated mate, but she chose him and he chose her and for twenty-odd years they’ve been a perfect Alpha couple for the Lakeview Pack.

So even though I hear my mom click her tongue in annoyance before she agrees, I know she’s only doing so because she can get away with it.

“Kitten?”

“Yeah?”

“Your mom says I’m good, but if you change your mind, just tell me to stop. Okay?”

I have no idea where this is going. “Okay.”

“Now, you know how Ryker Wolfson sent for you to be his mate after his father’s unfortunate accident? Yeah?”

Uh, yeah. How can I forget? I knew from the first moment I looked into Ryker’s eyes and saw his wolf that he was my fated mate. But, because he was a future Alpha, I also knew that he wouldn’t announce who his intended was until after they performed the Alpha Ceremony. The moon would whisper to him who his fated mate was, and he could either accept her as his intended or choose his own mate.

When my name was announced, he told Paul that he would take me as his mate because the moon said so. Of course, I was thrilled, and it wasn’t until I arrived in Accalia that I found out about Trish Danvers. I know that there are some Alphas—my sperm donor being one—who keep their fated mates at their side while fucking whatever female they want; Jack’s greedy nature and untamable lust was how Mom was able to avoid the Luna Ceremony for all of those years. I’d always hoped I’d have my bond finalized when Ryker claimed me during the Luna Ceremony, but if I had to share him with Trish, I could’ve dealt.

But then he rejected me for her outright, and even my sliver of hope of a happily-ever-after with Ryker disappeared in a heartbeat.

Why is Paul bringing this up now?

“Yeah. I know.”

“There’s something you don’t know, though. Your mom and I agreed at the time there was no reason to tell you since you were so young and no one knew for sure when Ryker would take over as Alpha. It could’ve been decades from now if Henry Wolfson hadn’t had his accident, and we didn’t want you feeling trapped.”

“Trapped?” I echo. I don’t understand. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Ryker asked me if he could take you as his mate at the pack meet four years ago.” Paul hesitates. “He said you were meant for him, and he’d wait if I wanted him to, but that he intended to have you. He considered you his intended even then, though he’d wait if I thought he should.”

Four years ago… that’s the pack meet where I ran with Ryker as wolves, and then I never saw him again until the day I arrived in Accalia when I was twenty-five, he was twenty-seven, and he acted like our mating was just another box he needed to check off since following his father as Alpha.

“What? He wanted me back then?” So what changed? And, more importantly, “How did he know that I was meant for him before the Alpha Ceremony told him so?”

“Well, Kitten. That’s the rub of it all, ain’t it? Maybe that’s something you should ask Ryker.”

My dad has a point.

I stew on that for the rest of the early morning and the whole next day before I wonder if I should do something about it.

Because Ryker? Unless Aleks figured out a way to lie to me, he never followed me home. He never tried to get to see me, and there’s no sign that he even approached the apartment at all.

It’s the first full turn of the moon I’ve gone without seeing him since he suddenly appeared in Muncie and it has my fur feeling like it’s been rubbed the wrong way. I keep hoping that maybe he was avoiding Aleks—I know, right—and that maybe he’d show up at Charlie’s when I head in for my next shift.

When two hours go by in a flash and there’s still no sign of him, I can’t help but wonder where he is and what he is doing.

Wonder? Ha. Try obsess.

It got so bad that I topped off Jimmy’s glass while it was still full, then knocked it over when I grabbed a rag to mop up some of the whiskey I spilled. The liquor splashed everywhere as the glass hit the countertop. It didn’t shatter, but the spray hit Jimmy and Vincent.

I must’ve looked so rattled, even Vincent kept his mouth shut.

I blame it on the full moon that seemed to blossom out of nowhere; even though it’s still light out, I can sense her in her full glory, prepared to ruin my evening. I always get a little twitchy, but you think I’d be better since I definitely took the edge off of my sexual need with Ryker. Then again, that might just be the problem. I’m not mated, but after our night together, my wolf won’t accept that I don’t have a true mate out there. She’s convinced that I do, and she wants him.

Luna damn it, so do I.

I must be really bad because, around eight o’clock, Hailey offers to cover the bar herself if I want to head out early.

I’m sure she thinks I’m going to go home and sleep it off. Though I’ve been careful to keep my shifter identity under wraps, after twelve months working with her, she started to notice I’m always on edge during the full moon. She told me once that she thought it had something to do with my cycle. She’s not wrong, so I didn’t argue. It is my cycle—it just so happens to be my reaction to the moon instead of my period that gets to me this time of the month.

Still, I struggle to convince myself that my desperate desire to talk to Ryker has nothing to do with the moon. After everything my mom and dad told me, I want to sit him down and hear his side of the story. Plus, the way he seemed to up and disappear after our night together has me notably on edge.

Before work, I stopped by the park, searching for him; it was the only lead I had, but it didn’t pan out. My wolf snapped at me until I gave in, letting her take the reins, but even she couldn’t find him.

I don’t know what to think. My instincts—and my abandoned wolf—tell me he’s not hanging around my apartment or the park because he isn’t in Muncie any longer. But did he take off because he got what he wanted? Or for some other reason?

Did something else happen to him?

It’s driving me nuts. Eventually, I realize that I’m doing more harm than good trying to force myself through the rest of my shift. And since it’s still early enough that, if I go to the apartment, I’ll have to face Aleks—who I’m still avoiding, though I know I won’t be able to do that forever—doing my best to hunt down Ryker again is my only real option.

It isn’t until I step outside of Charlie’s, the last lingering remnants of Ryker’s piss still stubbornly clinging to the cement, that I realize something. Though I used my whisper-thin bond with Ryker to follow him to the park before, it was all too easy to fall back into the habit of pretending it wasn’t there.

I take a deep breath, hoping that I’m not making a big mistake, and reach for our bond. If he can follow it, I should be able to, no matter how weak it’s gotten over the past year.

And it is weak. It’s a tiny spark, but one I can find when I’m specifically searching for it. I clutch it with both hands and give it a tug. I’m not even a little surprised when there’s no answering tug in return since I can sense he’s nowhere nearby, but that’s okay.

I think I’ve finally figured out where Ryker has gone.