Page 4 of Brody
His nostrils flared slightly as if he could smell my distress, my fury, my unwanted arousal.His lips parted as if to speak my name.
I had two weeks to prove my treatment worked, to save eighteen unmated males from losing their humanity completely, and to do it all while navigating a town that already hated my family name.
Oh, and to avoid the fated mate I’d spent a lifetime trying to forget.
No pressure… none at all.
I took one step forward, then another.Toward my past, my future, and, quite possibly, my destruction.
CHAPTER2
BRODY
The instant I saw her selfie, the paper with her name on it slid from my suddenly numb fingers.Dr.Rozi Dhahabu.So that was her name.Twenty-five years ago in Kenya, we hadn’t exchanged names or personal details—just primal recognition, mate bond, and then my cowardly retreat.I’d spent decades haunted by a face I couldn’t forget, a scent that lingered in my dreams, but without a name to call her.Now fate had given me that missing piece, completing the puzzle of the woman I’d betrayed.
My left hand erupted in violent tremors.White-hot pain shot up my arm, branching through nerve endings like lightning seeking ground, the agony so familiar now I almost welcomed it.
I clenched my fist, grinding my teeth until my gums ached.My spine felt like it was being crushed and realigned vertebra by vertebra, the beast pushing forward, desperate to shift and run to her.My joints popped audibly as bones tried to reconfigure.Sweat beaded on my forehead, the salt stinging my eyes as nausea rolled through me in waves.The metallic taste of the approaching shift coated my tongue.This was getting worse by the minute.
My grandma Una’s voice whispered through my memory, as clear as the day she’d cornered me in her kitchen, her weathered hands gripping my forearms with surprising strength for a woman in her eighties.The scent of her herbal remedies—willow bark, arnica, lavender, eucalyptus—had clung to her skin as she’d leaned in close, eyes sharp with knowledge.
“Listen to me, boy.You can run to the ends of the earth, but that bond will follow.The closer you get to your fated mate without claiming her, the more your body will tear itself apart from the inside.I’ve seen it happen, watched strong wolves reduced to shadows before they finally surrendered to feral sickness.The lucky ones died.The others…”
Her voice had trailed off, but the horror in her expression had told me everything.
I’d ignored her, cocky in my strength and control, confident that I could overcome mere biology.Now, as another violent spasm racked my frame, my muscles contracting so hard I thought my bones might snap, I understood how very wrong I’d been.
I’d thought I understood pain during my years in Special Forces—bullet wounds, torture, broken bones that had to be reset in the field.But this?This was my own cells rebelling, my DNA unraveling strand by strand as our primal bond stretched between us, incomplete and agonizing.This was my inner wolf howling for its other half while my human side slowly disintegrated, molecule by molecule.
I drew a ragged breath, copper flooding my mouth where my too-sharp teeth had sliced the inside of my cheek.The effort of remaining human, of not shifting or howling my agony, left me shaking and drenched in cold sweat that ran down my spine like ice water.
And this was just from seeing her picture.What will happen when she stands in front of me?When her scent fills my lungs again after years of memories?
She’s coming.Our mate is coming,my wolf snarled, clawing against my rapidly thinning control.
Now there she was, the woman I’d let slip through my fingers like grains of sand, walking through the airport doors with purpose in every step.Her scent hit me like a drug, sending blood rushing to my cock with embarrassing speed.My hands itched to trace the curves of her body, to discover terrain I’d been denied all this time.My fingers twitched at my sides, claws threatening to emerge as every muscle coiled in readiness.
Fresh perspiration beaded on my forehead, the scent of my own anxiety sharp in my nostrils.My wolf paced restlessly beneath my skin, whining with desperate anticipation.
My heart stuttered an uneven rhythm against my ribs, desire and dread warring for dominance.One moment, elation surged through me like a shot of pure adrenaline.She was here, real, more beautiful than my memories, the mate I’d abandoned returning against all odds.The next, my stomach twisted into a cold knot of certainty that she’d take one look at me and walk away.And this time, the rejection would kill me—literally, not figuratively.
But damn, she’s beautiful.
The years had transformed the girl I’d abandoned into a woman who commanded attention without trying.She moved with purpose, each step accentuating curves that hadn’t existed years ago.The airport’s lights caught the honey highlights woven through her curly caramel-blond hair, pulled high to expose the elegant column of her neck where my claiming bite should have been, where it belonged.The unmarked skin there mocked me, a testament to my greatest failure.
I wasn’t the only one noticing her.Two baggage handlers stopped their work, openly staring as she walked past, their scents spiking with lust that my enhanced senses detected from thirty feet away.A man in an expensive suit actually paused his phone call, his eyes following the sway of her hips with blatant appreciation.Even the airport security guard’s gaze lingered too long on her ass, his expression shifting from professional to predatory in seconds.My ears caught his murmured “Damn” under his breath.
I wanted to tear the throat out of every male whose eyes dared to appreciate what was ours, to feel their windpipes collapse beneath my fingers, to taste their blood as punishment for their disrespect.The savagery of the thought shocked even me, a man who’d seen combat in the world’s most brutal regions.
A low growl built in my chest, and the sound vibrated through my rib cage before I could stop it, turning heads from twenty feet away.Mine, my inner wolf snarled, hackles raised and teeth bared beneath my human skin, fur rippling just below the surface.The primal urge to mark her, to sink my teeth into her neck where everyone could see my claim, to feel her pussy against my tongue as the mating bond sealed permanently, nearly overwhelmed me.My jaw actually ached with the phantom sensation of biting down.
The intensity of my reaction stunned me.Years I’d denied the mate bond, and now my wolf was ready to slaughter half the airport for looking at her.My fingernails dug half-moons into my palms as I fought hard for control.
Her mahogany skin gleamed with a light sheen of perspiration, making my tongue ache with the need to taste the hollow at the base of her throat, to discover and map the salty-sweet flavor that was uniquely hers.When her hazel eyes narrowed on me, bright and intense like warning signals, my cock hardened painfully against my zipper.Her full lips pressed into a thin line of displeasure, and still, all I could think about was capturing them with mine, feeling them soften and open under my assault, swallowing her gasps as I claimed what should have been mine all along.What my stubborn pride had cost us both.
The wolf in me whined, a sound that vibrated through my chest without reaching my lips, straining against my control, recognizing what my human brain refused to admit—she’d only grown more perfect with time, more ours.More essential to our survival.
She carries our salvation in her very blood, my wolf whispered, pressing against the thinning barrier between animal and human consciousness.
