Page 9 of Mitchell's Untamed Mate

“Knock it off, Jace.”Mitchell turned to face her.“We don’t hunt shifters.”

“Not for food… yet,” Jace added with a malicious grin.

Anger flashed through Tracy.“I guess being a first-class jerk runs through humans as well,” she retorted.

The man surprisingly kept his mouth shut.She didn’t miss the flash of anger before he laughed.He twirled the spear in his hands and shoved the blunt end into the soft soil before he leaned against it.

“I can see why you kept her.She’s funny.She’ll make an interesting pet.What is she?”Jace commented.

Exasperation flared across Mitchell’s features and he scowled.“I’m not keeping her.She was about to return to her people,” he stated.

“No, I wasn’t,” Tracy retorted.

“You can’t be serious!”Jace said at the same time.

Mitchell glared back and forth between her and Jace before he muttered an expletive.She watched in disbelief as he pushed past Jace and continued in the direction he had been traveling before the other human appeared.She shouldered past Jace and followed.

“I’m serious.I’m not going anywhere!”she argued.

Three hours later, she was grumbling under her breath comments that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap when she was a kid.Jace’s snide remark that he never knew shifters were so damn noisy all the time had finally shut her up.Her bear wanted to rip the stupid human’s head off.

“That goes against everything I’ve been taught,” she muttered.

“What does?”

Straightening up from collecting wood for a campfire, she was taken aback by the unexpected interruption to her silent tantrum.Standing just a few feet away, Mitchell’s gaze locked with hers.A flush of embarrassment spread across her face as she inwardly cursed her bear’s loud and unmistakable rumbling growl of pleasure.

“What does what?”she asked with a frown.

“What goes against everything you’ve been taught?”he asked.

She blinked and gave him a crooked grin.“Killing humans.I don’t like your friend Jace.”

Mitchell looked over his shoulder.Jace was relaxing back on a log as if he didn’t have a care in the world.He turned back to her and smiled.

“Yeah, well, there are a few of us that feel that way sometimes about him.You’re not alone,” he admitted.

“Good to know.”

She returned to gathering firewood.When Mitchell stooped to gather wood, she surreptitiously studied him under her eyelashes.

“Your shirt… The sleeve is torn.”

He glanced at his arm, turning it until he could see the rip.Smooth, muscular mocha skin peeked through the torn fabric when he pulled on the woven cloth.He shrugged.

“I’ll mend it later,” he replied.

She paused, staring at him.The reality of who he was, what he was, and what it must be like to survive hit her hard.He must have sensed her distress because he straightened and walked over to her.

“What is it?”he asked.

Biting her lower lip, she shook her head.“I can’t believe you’re real.I’ve searched the world for artifacts on humans, devouring all the literature and research on humans that I could find.I never imagined meeting....”

Her voice faltered before fading.She tried to imagine what she would feel like if the situation were reversed.Her words seemed callous.

“I’m sorry.I shouldn’t have?—”

He silenced her with a shake of his head.

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