Page 2 of His Rejected Mate

Without looking up, Simon answered, “This is a simple tracking device that will keep me up to date on your location. The needle itself is designed to pull small samples of blood and analyze them at random intervals. All to see how your body is reacting to the next experiment I have planned for you.” He finished attaching the device and patted my arm. “There we are. All done.”

Simon grabbed a stainless steel rolling stool, moved it to the side of my table, then sat. Resting an elbow on the table, he gazed at me lovingly. It wasn’t a lustful look; it reminded me of how a child would look at an ant farm they dearly cherished.Like I was nothing more than a beautiful specimen in a jar of formaldehyde.

“I can’t tell you how ecstatic I am to see you again, Kira. You’ve grown into a strong young woman. So similar, yet so different from that awkward girl I pulled aside at that party all those years ago.”

Gritting my teeth, I glared at him. “I’m glad I could make your day.”

Simon gave me a faux-shocked, open-mouthed smile and pointed at me. “Testy, aren’t we? Perhaps that’s why you proved such a good guinea pig all those years ago.” He burst into a laugh. “Maybe I should have said guineawolf, huh?”

“Very clever,” I mumbled.

Ignoring me, Simon went on. “You know, I didn’t evenwantto go to that party for my niece.” He clicked his tongue in disgust. “She was always quite boring. A simple child with simple desires. Truly, the only reason I accepted my sister’s invitation is because my theories and experimentations had grown beyond what could be done in a lab or computer. Ihadto have a live subject, and there would be children at the party. Any live subject would have worked, of course.” He waved a hand as if shooing a fly away. “But children are, shall we say, easier to convince.”

My skin crawled. He’d come to the party for no other reason than to conduct an experiment on a child? He really was a monster. Part of me wished that I had actually ripped his guts out all those years ago.

“And I fit your parameters?” I asked.

Simon’s eyes locked on mine, and I inwardly flinched away at the look of hunger in them. He nodded and patted my shoulder. “Indeed you did, my lovely. You can’t begin to appreciate my shock at seeing another latent shifter like me there. You wereperfect.”

“What?” I asked, brow furrowing in confusion. “I wasn’t a latent shifter. How could you know that, even if I was?”

Simon’s smile grew wider, revealing too many teeth. “Ah, I see. You were unaware of your true nature.”

My fear of the man and the situation faded as my anger and curiosity grew.

“What do you mean? What was my true nature?” I asked, blinking rapidly. Remembering what else he’d said, another question popped out before I could stop myself. “How can you be a latent shifter? You’re fae.”

Simon crossed his arms and sat back on the stool, still looking at me with those mad, beady eyes. A look of contemplation crossed his face, and he ran his tongue over his lower lip.

“Kira,” he finally said, “you were a latent shifter. I had developed some detection spells. When I strolled by you while you and my niece were dancing that evening, those spells locked onto you and showed me what I’d been waiting for. Not only had a shifter been invited to the party—a child shifter, no less—but alatentshifter like me.

“You see, I am a bit of an anomaly. A half-breed: part shifter, part fae. My mother had a tryst with a wolf from a random unofficial pack. That was a year or two before she met the man who would be my younger sister’s blood father. The pairing between fae and alpha created offspring.” Simon touched his own chest. “Myself. Quite rare indeed. A one in a million chance, as you well know.”

I stared at him, horror-struck. I’d never met someone with that type of lineage. They were whispered about, but rare enough that they were thought impossible. It all began to make sense.

I glanced around the lab again, Simon’s purpose becoming clear. “You wanted to access your inner wolf?”

Simon snapped his fingers and leaned forward hungrily. “Exactly. And you were thefirststep in my process. My dear girl, you have no idea how important you were to my research. I’d spent years developing a concoction that would unleash a suppressed latent wolf. A potion that would be strong enough to bend the will of nature herself.

“I believed the special tincture to be ready, but I needed to test it first—”

“So you forced it on a child?” I snarled, cutting him off.

Simon waved my outburst away and frowned in annoyance. “Not important. What matters is that I wasrightto test it first. When I lured you deep into the forest with a bit of fae glamor and gave you the potion, there were immediate and violent side effects.”

“And those were?” I asked. As angry as I was, I wanted—needed—to hear everything that had happened that night.

“The induction of ferality,” Simon whispered. “Almost instantly, I knew I’d been successful.” He bobbed his head back and forth. “There was a bit of… screaming and shouting. Pain, yes, but you shifted. The problem was that the wolf that appeared did not come into this world peacefully. The thing erupted, fully formed and mature, yet completely out of its mind. Feral beyond belief. I, being a scientist by nature and not a warrior, was not well-equipped to fight for my life in such tight confines as the cave to which I’d lured you. Had I not been anticipatingsomeside effects, you very nearly would have done me in. As it was, I received numerous and rather severe injuries. As a last-ditch effort, I cast a somnambulism spell on you. You sleep-walked out of the cave and ran into the forest while I writhed in pain and neared death.”

Rather than looking sad, he had the look of someone giddy with happiness. “With nothing else to risk, I took the potion myself. It forced my own long-repressed latent wolf to stepforward and show itself to me. You see, being a half-breed, I never had the gifts of most shifters. No enhanced senses, no inner wolf to bond with—the enhanced speed and strength were all nowhere to be seen. Also missing? That wonderful rapid shifter healing. Once my wolf revealed itself, all of that came to the fore. Isn’t that exciting, Kira?”

Swallowing hard, I nodded hesitantly. “Yeah. Amazing,” I said dryly.

“Still, it was a slow process to heal. Even for a shifter, my wounds were grievous. In my agonized stupor, only one thought kept me going: I had been successful. I’d brought about a shift in a latent shifter.” Simon clenched his fist in front of his face, staring down at his knuckles. “I had harnessed the power I’d sought for all those years. I would survive. Which was good, because I had too much work to do.”

Simon was lost in thought for several long seconds, almost like he’d put himself into a trance. Every second I spent with the man showed me more and more how crazy he was. Not only crazy, but possibly fully psychotic.

A giggle from his mouth broke the silence, and he looked at me again. “You were a fiery little thing. Yes, you were. Robust and powerful. Not only had I managed to pull your wolf free from you, but some part of my magical potion had also converted you into an alpha. A female alpha. Rare beyond words. By my own hands, I’d pulled a wolf from its prison. Not any wolf, either, but the most powerful and rare of its kind.” Simon held his hands out, palms up for me to inspect. “You see? I have the power of a god in these hands.”

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