“I can’t tell,” she smartly said with a hand on her hip. I noticed she was floating, her feet inches from the ground. “Your mate is in there. She’s completely open to all those horny single shifters in town. It would be a shame if another shifter got her first,” she smartly replied before floating over to me with a condescending expression on her face. “I mean, you saw what happened the last time you gave her too much space.”
“I don’t have clothes,”I stated the obvious.
“You do now.” She snapped her fingers, and a pair of black sweats were in her hands. “What’s your excuse now?”
Allowing my human to take over my form, I shifted back. Standing to my full height, I looked down at the tiny female. She looked even smaller now that I was in my human form.
“I don’t need any excuse. I’m going to get my mate,” I grunted before snatching the pants from her hand.
She let out a breath of air while frowning up at me. “You remind me of the foolish brother, and I don’t like him. Bear, don’t get on my bad side. I don’t need another headache.”
“Hopefully, we won’t run into each other again. Thank you for the pants.”
“Unfortunately for us both, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Go get your mate, Bear. We may have gotten rid of some of her ways, but a lot of them are still there.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
I turned around to ask the tiny woman, only to see no one behind me. Had I not had these pants, I would have thought I was imagining things. I didn’t even care to understand who or what that female was. I just wanted to find my mate and bring her home.
Sniffing the air, I found her scent and headed in the direction her scent was the strongest. I prayed that Fate would make this easy for us, but I doubted it. Fate loved making shit difficult for us.
Chapter Four
BELLAMY ROSE
“He’s coming for you.Run, silly shifter, or he’s going to get you.”That damn voice had been talking louder and louder since I walked into town, and it was annoying the hell out of me.
All I wanted to do was sell my clothes, grab some supplies to last me until next month, then go home. I didn’t want to be bothered with anything or anyone outside of that. Then the fact that this dumb-ass voice kept calling me a fucking shifter was pissing me off. I wasn’t a damn shifter, and I would have rather jumped from the tallest mountain in Hollow Valley before I ever became a shifter. On top of that, I was feeling like someone was following me in the woods, and all of it had me on edge too. Oddly enough, I kept smelling the toasted vanilla scent that usually was only around my cabin, but unlike when I was at my cabin, the scent wasn’t calming me down. If anything, it was making me anxious. I tried to focus on setting up my small tent where I sold my clothes, but I was far too distracted by my emotions to do anything.
“Don’t speak to him. He’s a distraction. Send him on his way,” a calm voice said from my left. Snapping my head in the direction of the voice, I came face to face with a child-sizedfemale. I could tell she was fully grown, but her height was that of a kid.
“Teeny?” I squinted my eyes at the familiar face that was in my dreams every night.
A wide smile graced her beautiful face. She looked young, but I could tell she was far older than I was. “Nope. That is my sister. I’m Minnie, but we can deal with all the formalities later. That man is a snake. Don’t fall for his charm. Your mate doesn’t deal well with seeing you with other male shifters. A part of you hurt him before. He has to learn to trust you again.”
“What are you talking about?” My attitude was loud because this woman had to be out of her damn mind, talking about me having a mate. I had a fiancé, and now that he was dead, I would never love another. When I was met with silence, I turned to look at the lady, but she was gone.
Yeah, I had to be losing my mind. Now I was talking to imaginary grown kids. I really needed to get out more.
“You are breathtakingly beautiful,” a strong masculine voice said. Initially, I didn’t feel anything when he spoke to me, but when I looked into his eyes, it was like I was hypnotized. His voice was singing to my soul as he smiled at me with a vindictive yet alluring smile. His eyes flashed colors of all shades, and I found myself battling to find the words I wanted to say.
“Thank you,” I bashfully replied. At the same time, I was looking at myself, confused because that wasn’t how I wanted to respond. I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience while watching myself gush over this fair-skinned man.
“I want you to come home with me ssso I can make you feel asss good asss you look.” He hissed when he pronounced his s’s. His hand ran down my cheek. Watching his tongue flip rapidly, my eyes grew wide as I realized he was a shifter.
Everything in me wanted to spit in his face. He was one of the worst kinds of shifters. A snake shifter. I may not have knownas much about shifters as others, but I knew a snake shifter was there the night Alonzo was killed. The rage I felt threatened to break free from where I had been keeping it bottled up, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t respond the way I wanted to this disgusting snake shifter.
“Mmm…” I moaned, not because I wanted to go anywhere with this bastard, but because I had no control over what I was saying.
“Yesss. That’sss a good girl,” he hissed, blowing his hot breath in my face with his lips inches from mine. I wanted to snatch my head away from him so bad, but I was stuck. It felt like I was trapped in quicksand while slowly staring at my doom.
A loud growl made my heart drop to my stomach as I watched a beautiful brown-skinned man storm in our direction. What should have been at least twenty steps were two for him because his legs were so long. His towering frame made everyone here look like midgets. The trance I was trapped in moments ago was broken, and I was able to move back from the snake shifter who had held me captive.
“I thought you changed. I thought my mate had somehow shed her whorish ways, but you are the same Bellum I’ve always known,” the tall man said to me with his handsome face frowned up, and as crazy as it sounded, I wanted to fix whatever was wrong with him. I didn’t like seeing him upset. It hurt me to know that something was bothering him. “But unlike before, Bellum, I’m not giving you any passes. You don’t have a choice but to change your fucking ways,” he continued to bark, and I found myself looking around for this Bellum person he was speaking of.
I wondered if it was the short woman from before who had him so angry. I would kick her ass if she’d done something to this fine-ass man. I didn’t care how crazy I sounded either. I meant every word I said.
“Ssshe’sss mine,” the snake shifter hissed while looking at the tall man with fire in his eyes. I wanted to rip that snake shifter’s tongue out for saying that bullshit. I wasn’t anything to him. I belonged to the tall man—I didn’t mean that.
