Forever Fated Mates: A Shifter Romance Collection

by Meg Ripley

  I was so focused, in fact, that I hadn’t paid attention to Ezra. I didn’t think he’d come after me—or be able to keep up, for that matter. And so, when I heard someone running just behind me, it threw me off.

  The sound of paws pounding on the dirt made me whirl and pause until I realized it was him. I ran again, but now his scent overwhelmed my senses. I shook it off and picked out the vehicle scent again and ran to a crossroads.

  When I got there, I found a slightly busier dirt road. This was one more heavily-traveled by visitors to the park, so there was an onslaught of odors to sort through; I couldn’t tell which way the killer had gone. I sniffed and sniffed, running in circles, going down one direction, then another. Fuck.

  I had to face the truth after several minutes of trying. I’d lost him. My gut sank and the anger ripped through my chest. It was all Ezra’s fault.

  I ran back a little ways until we were well out of human earshot or sight. I waited, and sure enough, moments later, he came bounding toward me. As soon as he caught up to me and stopped, I shifted back. And then I let him have it.

  “Why do you always show up at the worst possible times? I had him, you asshole! Why won’t you stay away from me?”

  He blinked at me with his big bear eyes before he stood up and shifted back.

  “How can you blame this on me?” he demanded. “I was following you to help you catch him!”

  “But you didn’t. You distracted me and I lost the scent.”

  “So, you got distracted and that’s my fault?”

  “If you would have stayed out of my way, I would have him right now.” My rage boiled at the thought of it. “I could have put an end to all of this.”

  “Oh right, because you’re going to chase a car now? You really think you’re that fast?” he challenged.

  I gritted my teeth together. “I would have followed the scent until I came to the vehicle, idiot.”

  “Then go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

  “I can’t because I lost the trail when you distracted me.”

  “So, you lost the trail and that’s my fault, too?”

  “Yes!” My hands balled into fists. “What is your problem? Why do you keep showing up and following me around?”

  “I’m not. You keep showing up! I was out hunting and there you were, then—”

  “Oh, when you took my kill? That time? When I was out hunting and you just showed up?”

  “Then, you came into Shady’s—”

  “I was there first,” I said.

  “Whatever. But you were the one who took it on yourself to come over to me and start something. I was just sitting there minding my own business. Then you were the one who came to us when you found the dead panther, or did you forget that?”

  “Hello? You’re the ranger, not me. It’s your job to find the killer.”

  “Exactly.” His expression fell into cockiness, and I wanted to slap it off him. “And that’s what I’m doing. So, actually, you’re in my way. You got in the way of the official investigation.”

  “Oh, what are you going to do, arrest me? You don’t have the authority to do that.”

  “Of course not.” He shook his head. “You’re an asset to the investigation—when you’re not getting in the way. I came out here to make sure you were okay and see if you found anything.”

  “I don’t need you to check up on me. Stay away and maybe I could find something to tell you about. Or, more likely, I’ll just kill him myself and not bother you all with it.”

  “Right, because you’re better at everything? You’re better than everyone? Why would rangers have any idea how to do their jobs, is that it?”

  I growled low in my chest before I jumped on him, sending him crashing to the ground. I pinned him down, my hands on his shoulders.

  “Who’s winning now, asshole?” I spit the words at him.

  “Neither of us.” He held my gaze for a long moment, then did something I couldn’t forgive him for. He leaned up a few inches and smashed his mouth to mine.

  I pulled back and narrowed my eyes. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Let’s just get it over with. We keep running into each other. It’s obvious there’s some stupid attraction between us.”

  The fact that I was lying naked on top of him suddenly registered in my body, and warmth rushed over me. He grew hard beneath my hips and that same feeling took over. That animalistic desire.

  Maybe he was right. “So, we fuck and that’s it? Then we’ll be able to stay away from each other?”

  “I sure hope so,” he said. “Because I can’t stand it anymore. Your scent drives me wild, but your attitude drives me crazy. I don’t know if I should kiss you or smack you.”

  Just for fun, I slapped him—not too hard, but to make a point. Then, I pressed my lips against his in a hungry kiss, like I wanted to devour him. Because in that moment, I did.

  He dug his fingers into my hair and pulled me closer. We kissed so hard, it hurt my mouth. My body tingled all over with wanton desire, and when I finally gave into it the feeling was so strong, it made my head spin.

  He pushed up and flipped us so he was on top. His hands were on either side of my body and he lowered himself down to press against me. His skin was as hot as mine; we were fire together, stoking each other to raging. Pressing his hips into mine, his hard-on slid up and down against me; I was so wet already.

  But I didn’t like him being on top. I was going to show him that I was in control. I pushed up and tackled him again, reaching down to grab his cock. I had to make sure he was nice and ready, and I wanted this over fast.

  He was hard as a rock, so I positioned myself over him and slid down his length, but as he entered me, the feeling overwhelmed me and shook me to the core. Before he was even fully inside me, I came with a loud moan. Any other time I had sex, it took much longer than that, and once I hit my peak, that was it. I came and moved on. Not this time. This was just the beginning; my body was still hot and wanting him.

  I sat up, pushing him fully inside me before I bounced on him, sending him deep and shallow as I rocked. I tugged on his chest hair and he growled in response, pinching my nipples so hard it should have hurt, but instead, it sent a wave of pleasure through me.

  He grabbed my hips and slammed me down, thrusting harder into me than before, and his eyes stared at me intently as he pounded me faster. This was not lovemaking. Not even close. This was fucking.

  “Faster!” I demanded.

  He sat up and embraced me, but it was only to move me. He put himself on top of me again and slid one arm under my leg to pin it up high. From that position, he was able to go deep, but also harder. His ass muscles worked as he thrusted into me again and again. It still wasn’t hard enough. Nothing could be hard enough.

  “Harder!” I insisted.

  He sped up, his face red with the exertion. As he pounded, I came again, feeling like a wave had rushed over me, then out of me and all over him.

  He yanked back, pulling out of me so fast it took my breath before he flipped me over on my stomach. Pulling my hips up to meet his, he entered me from behind. His fist wound into my hair and he tugged as he slammed into me.

  Finally, from this position, he could do it hard enough. My ass slapped against his thighs and my wetness drenched him. That was the problem, I realized. I was actually too wet. Not enough friction.

  As he sped up, putting his other hand on my shoulder to steady me as he pounded me, the friction increased a little. Before it had been just playing. Now we were getting serious.

  “Fuck yes,” he groaned.

  I pushed back, forcing my ass into him with each thrust. His cock stroked my insides and when he cried out, I came for the third time.

  “I’m coming,” he announced and let go of my hair to grab my hips. He pounded me as hard as he could and cried out again. I could feel his dick throbbing inside me.

  He collapsed to the forest floor, spent. I was still on all fours a
nd dropped my forehead down to the soft ground, tingling all over. Even the soreness felt good, which seemed twisted to me, but then again, so did this whole thing. Did we really just have sex?

  I faced him as he laid in the grass, breathing hard, glistening in a sheen of sweat.

  “You think that did it?” I asked.

  “That did something, that’s for sure.”

  “Yeah.” I got to my feet. “Now please, please, stay the fuck out of my way.”

  I shifted back to my panther and heard him calling out to me, begging me not to run off yet, but my paws sank into the soft ground as I ran.

  10

  Ezra

  When I could finally move again, I pushed myself up. She’d ditched me, just like that? Get off, then take off? Weren’t women always accusing men of doing that, calling it insensitive? She had just screwed my brains out and left.

  I shook my head. How had we gone from screaming at each other to having sex? It didn’t make much sense to me. But it had made perfect sense to my body. She felt so good. Even the thought made me hard again. No, I reminded myself. That was it. We had sex so that we could stay away from each other.

  I shifted and took off, running back to my car and clothes. I went straight home and showered, but at least this time, I didn’t have to shower in frigid water to calm my body down. I was worn out. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and fell onto the couch, but I didn’t even get the can opened before I fell asleep. I knew this because when I woke in the morning, the sealed can was on the floor where I’d apparently dropped it in my sleep. At least it hadn’t spilled all over the carpet.

  I stretched and caught a faint whiff of her on my shirt. How that had even happened, I didn’t know. I guess her scent was on me when I dressed and it had lingered. One little sniff and my cock stood at attention. Great, I sighed inwardly. So much for the whole ‘let’s-have-sex-to-get-this-out-of-our-systems’ theory. I already craved her. I wanted more. I wanted her.

  I doubted there was any way she’d want to see my face again. This had been a one-time thing and probably a huge mistake. My mind was already foggy with desire and want; full of nothing but her. I scrubbed my face with my hands and hopped in the shower for yet another cold shower.

  When I got to work, I went straight to Owen’s office, where I found him working at his computer. I sat in the chair across from him and banged my forehead onto the desk.

  “Bad night?” he asked.

  “Depends on how you look at it,” I mumbled, my face pressed into the cool wood. “I found her.”

  “Yeah? Anything come up?”

  I sat up to look at him. “You could say that. We… had sex.”

  “What!” He coughed and spit out his coffee. “How the…?”

  “I found her and pissed her off like I always seem to do. She was on the trail of the killer and said I distracted her and made her lose it. So, we got into this huge screaming match and the next thing I knew, she tackled me. What was I supposed to do? She was naked on top of me. My body went crazy. So, I kissed her. Then we…”

  “Of all the things I thought you might say to me this morning, this would have been last on the list, right after you telling me you were abducted by aliens last night.”

  “It sorta feels like that, man.” I set my elbow on the desk and slumped, putting my cheek in my hands. “It’s like she’s taking over my whole body.”

  “What happens now? Are you two going to be a thing?”

  “No. The whole point was to get it over with so we can be done with each other.”

  “She said that?” he asked.

  “No, I said that and she agreed. I thought if we just had sex, the attraction would be lessened. You know how that happens sometimes? You chase someone who’s hard to get and when you get them, the interest is gone.”

  “I guess? I’ve never had that.”

  “Well, I have,” I admitted. “It sucks. More for the female, but still. The chase is over, you get what you want, then you want nothing to do with her, but now she’s into you.”

  “Is that what happened?”

  “No,” I sighed. “I want her even more. And even less. I don’t know what to do. This is killing me.”

  “You look like crap,” he pointed out.

  “Thanks.”

  “I don’t know if what I’m going to say will make it better or worse.”

  “There is no worse.”

  “Okay. I’m sending you to work with Mason. I want you to join forces with the police to become part of the investigation.” He looked at me, waiting for a response.

  “Fine. If we find this guy, I won’t have to be around her. She’ll be safe, and I can move on.”

  “Can you?”

  I stood and looked at him sadly. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

  “Call me if you need anything.”

  I held up a hand to wave as I walked out.

  I drove over to the police station to meet up with Mason and his team. They were expecting me, and when I got there, they welcomed me into the room where they had details of the investigation set up. We went over things, but there wasn’t much new. I did tell them about Britt and I coming across the scent, then losing it, but that didn’t help much. It did tell them that whoever this was, he was still in the area.

  “Since you know the park best,” Mason announced, “we’ll team up to go on regular patrols.” He flipped open a binder of photos and information. “These are our suspects. They’ve all been known in the community for speaking out against panthers.

  Once they left the station to return to the park for their first patrol, Mason said, “Now that the non-shifters aren’t around, I can tell you the rest. We checked out each suspect already and none of them match the scent. That doesn’t mean the person who killed the panther isn’t working with a group, assuming this isn’t just a random, one-time attack. We have to treat it like an ongoing attack and expect another incident. We’re trying to find connections at this point. See if the killer knows any of our suspects. They’re not truly suspects any longer to those of us in the force who are shifters, but obviously we can’t just come out and tell our non-shifter colleagues that. I had no idea this would be so tricky.” He shrugged. “So, any trace of the scent that we come across, we’ll follow fully. We have something of a scent database between the shifters on the force, so I want to get a good whiff of the vehicle to share with them. That way we can see who’s connected to who and try to get evidence from there.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll take you to the scent.”

  We ran to the place where Britt and I had chased after the trail; I showed him the scent and he got a good whiff.

  “I don’t recognize it,” he admitted after we returned to our human forms. “I’ll share it with the guys and see if they do. Some of the cops who’ve been around a while might have come across the guy before. Most criminals don’t expect the police to use smell to track them down.” He chuckled.

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “You okay, man? You’re awfully quiet.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I lied. My mind was tangled. Being close to where Britt and I had been just the night before was like torture. The longing in me had grown out of control. Having sex hadn’t quelled my interest; it only made it worse.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly. He knew me too well, but didn’t press. “We were also hoping that Britt would join us, unofficially of course, as part of the team to help patrol and search for the guy.”

  My eyes widened. “You want us to work together?”

  “Unless that’s a problem?”

  I shook my head. The idea of having to be around her, to team up together to find this guy, to be out in the woods running around together, excited me; I couldn’t deny it. My heart raced.

  “I’ll go talk to her about it. I’m sure she’d love to help. She’s already on patrol, trying to find him anyway. This way, we can keep her safe.”

  Mason studied me again and nodded. “Exactly.”

/>   “I’ll ask her and bring her back here so we can set up a plan of which directions we’ll go in, how we’ll report anything found, that sort of thing.”

  “I’ll drive you over to her house,” Mason offered as he grabbed his keys and headed off to his car.

  I hesitated. I wanted to do this alone. As I was thinking of a way to tell Mason without alerting him to something more, an urgent voice crackled through his radio as I slid into the car.

  Mason picked it up and had an intense conversation with the person on the other end. There were a lot of codes given back and forth that I didn’t understand. “Ezra! There’s been another attack,” he said. “Another panther has been found dead.”

  I didn’t stop to think about it, and I didn’t let him know where I was going. He’d figure it out. I threw open the passenger door and shifted, leaving my clothes in his car, and ran as fast as I could. I had to get to her.

  The run didn’t take me long. I came up to her cabin and didn’t stop at the edge of the property, but ran straight up onto the porch and hammered on the door.

  11

  Britt

  Someone was pounding on my door. If it wasn’t the police, it sure sounded like them. This would usually piss me off, but after everything that had went down, it worried me. I hurried to the door, but when I opened it, Ezra was there. I didn’t have time to get annoyed; the look on his face was so frantic, it shot ice through me.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Another panther’s been found dead.”

  My stomach dropped. It hadn’t been just the one; this was going to keep going after all. I’d never been so regretful of being right in my life.

  My shotgun wasn’t far. I spun, grabbed it from the living room where it’d been resting against the wall, and came back, ready to go after the asshole.

  When Ezra saw me, he looked pained.

  “What are you waiting for?” I asked. “Come on.”

  “I know you want to get out there,” he said. “But let’s let the police do their job first. They’re already on it.”