Page 1 of Predator

PROLOGUE

Jolie…

It’s the rage at hearing her name that triggers the change in me.

I don’t really understand it. One second, I was curled up next to my mate, enjoying the mingled scents of our bodies, our sex, and the woods that surrounded us, slicking my skin and filling my nostrils.

Content and boneless, with Lucas’s bite on my lower neck and his hand laying possessively on me beneath the tree where we first met… I was half asleep when the new scent filtered in past my consciousness.

A little bit sweet, more than a little peppery, and with a woodsy accent that seemed to stand out among the earth and the trees and the forest around me, it called to me. Like I knew it. Like it meant something to me.

I was still Fallon then. But hearing her name—my name—her name did something to me. It brought the rage, the fury, the pain that came with the last moments before I died. Or she did. I don’t know. My memory is so hazy now, and I don’t know if that scent out there is someone I’m acquainted with—or Jolie was.

We both know the male crouched behind us. A magnificent male, with his amber-colored eyes and his dark, tousled curls, he’s tanned, his body sculpted, his expression hesitant.

He smells like me. Of course. I fucked him—no. I mated him. I tied him to a tree… like I was tied to a tree once before… and then I climbed on top of him so that I could take his cock inside of my pussy, and his fangs in my neck.

He bit me. He made me his mate, beneath the Luna’s watchful gaze, fucking me and biting me and promising me forever… something Jolie wanted, but never had.

I want it.

I wanted it.

But who am I? I was Fallon… but Fallon is a human. Blonde hair. Strange gold eyes. My opal.

Where is my opal?

I have paws. Stamping them in panic, I have four paws. My fur is the same shade as my hair, though shorter and more bristly. It’s standing on end, nothing like the sleek wolves of the pack?—

I’m pack. They accepted me. But I shouldn’t be a wolf.

Why am I a wolf?

An animalistic whine escapes my throat.

I’m a wolf…

“Fallon?”

No, Lucas. I’m not Fallon. I can’t be. Fallon isn’t a wolf shifter. Eleanor told me… she told me that shifters aren’t made. A bite might finalize the mate bond between Lucas and me, but it could never turn me into a wolf if I wasn’t one already. She said I’d have perks. Perks. Not this…

What happened to me?

Where did that scent go?

Why is Lucas creeping up on me?

I swivel my head, yelping when I see my tail. Because I… I have a tail.

Because I’m a wolf.

I’m also his mate.

The peppery scent is fading. Chuffing again and again, I breathe because even wolves have to breathe, and now all I can smell is blood. My blood. Lucas bit me. He fucked me, and he bit me because that’s what the wolves of Winter Creek do.

I’m supposed to bite him.

He’s my mate. I need to mark him. Claim him. I need for him to understand that, whoever I am, I’m still his mate.

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