Page 146 of Primal Bonds

She raised a hand to the back of her neck and cast a look around. Nothing stirred in the scrubby tundra except for a few intrepid rats.

That didn’t mean no one was out there. Iceland was a land of magical creatures, its sparse human population meaning the supernatural world had settled here in large numbers. The ice fae were at the top of the food chain, but the island was also home to goblins and elves.

She shoved her clothes and shoes into her backpack, cinched the pack around her shoulders and waist with special straps designed to stretch with her, and shifted to her cougar.

Her quartz heated, lending its energy. Colorful sparks of gold, silver and blue danced over her skin. Warmth filled her chest, spreading throughout her body, and then she disappeared, for a time neither woman nor cougar, until the change was complete.

Her cougar snarled and scraped its claws in the hard-packed earth next to the pavement, pissed off at being forced to remain a human for most of the last twenty-four hours.

The cat was increasingly bold. Demanding.

Adric feared she was going feral. She’d overheard him discussing it with Suha, Marjani’s best friend and the clan’s head healer.

They all knew what that meant—as alpha, Adric would have to kill her. You couldn’t have a cougar with a human’s cunning and an animal’s bloodlust roaming around Baltimore.

Just let me do this one last job. For Adric and the clan.

At least if she died, she’d go out with honor.

She loped north toward the ice fae court, using her quartz as a compass so that she could run through the tundra, avoiding the road. The sun rose, a weak, pale thing, and the sense of being watched eased.

By noon, she’d covered twenty miles, passing like a shadow by tiny fishing villages and farms with shaggy Icelandic sheep and the smallest horses she’d ever seen. She swerved west, coming out on a deserted cliff above the North Atlantic, and made her way down to the beach, where she shifted back to human. Shedding her backpack, she found her fishing knife and strode naked into the icy surf. Within minutes, she had two fish, which she filleted and roasted on a tiny camp stove.

The taste was fresh and wild. Perfect.

She was licking her fingers when a movement on the cliff above made her bolt to her feet.

It was Fane, looking like a freaking model for Iceland Magazine in a silver shirt and worn jeans, long legs braced apart and his golden hair secured with a leather tie. His gaze traveled down her naked body, and his sexy mouth curved.

She ignored the smile to zero in on his ears. A diamond stud glittered in one earlobe, but what made her growl were the pointed tops, obvious now his hair was pulled back. He had more fae in him than she’d guessed.

Without taking her gaze from him, she picked up the fishing knife, flipping it from hand to hand with the ease of long practice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Easy.” He raised a hand, palm out, in a placating gesture she didn’t trust for a second. “I can explain.”

“Yeah, right.”

She closed the still-warm camp stove and shoved it into her backpack along with the knife. She strapped the pack on, aware of him watching the entire time. Let him look his fill. One false move and she’d slit his throat.

But he remained on the cliff.

She shifted to cougar and bounded up the cliff, where she snarled right in his pretty face, making sure to show plenty of teeth.

The man was either stupid—or brave. He stood his ground, hands loose at his sides. Not aggressive, but not giving an inch.

She stalked around him, growling lowly.

“I mean you no harm,” he said, which earned him another snarl.

She reached his front and paused, tail twitching in confusion. Her cougar didn’t know what to make of him, but it didn’t scent a threat. In fact, to her cat, Fane smelled somehow right, just as he had last night to the human Marjani.

A smile curled over his lips. “By the gods,” he said in his smoky voice, “you’re beautiful. And you’d rip out my throat in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?”

Her response was a snarl, but inside, the cougar preened itself at the compliment.

He lifted a brow. “Are you ready to listen?”

She gave one last growl and sat on her haunches.

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