Reluctant Mate: Greyriver Shifters: Volume One, #3

By Kristina Weaver

Reluctant Mate was initially published as the third book in Greyriver Shifters by Kristina Weaver. It is now available as the third book in a five-part series: Greyriver Shifters: Volume One.

 

Enjoy over 80,000 words in this third book of the first series.

 

Reluctant Mate

The problem with being a liar and a cheat is that, before you know it, you don't recognize yourself anymore. I've spent my life lying, living in a world where other people don't know the real me. I've lied to myself, my friends, and the one female who I should have claimed years ago. Beebee hates me, for good reason. She doesn't trust me, for good reason. She wants me because I make her believe that she should. Now it's up to me to decide if loving her is worth the risk of losing my freedom and losing myself once again when things fall apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kristina Weaver
• Release date: Oct 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223839675

Kristina Weaver

Immerse yourself in the world of romantic comedy with Kristina Weaver. Her stories feature strong male characters and witty female leads, creating laughter and chaos before delivering a happy ending. With the added bonus of paranormal elements, her books are perfect for those seeking adventure. Start with the first book in the Greyriver Shifters Volume One series and get ready to be swept away into a world of imagination. Keep an eye out for discounts and even FREE offers on this book because this is an experience you wouldn't want to miss! For more information: Books2read.com/KristinaWeaver KristinaWeaverAuthor at Gmail dot com

Book preview

Chapter One

Beebee

Run.

Run.

Run.

It’s all I keep telling myself as I pump my legs, falling, stumbling, righting myself against the deep snow drifts and fighting the fatigue, pain, and hunger that hasn’t left me no matter how I try to ignore them.

I’m so tired. God, so tired I could happily curl up in the cold and sleep forever, I think, pushing forward only to cry out when my leg goes knee deep into the snow and sends me sprawling face first into icy powder.

The impact sends me sprawling, my breath wheezing as I go still, completely depleted and unable to move another inch now that stillness has swept away the mad dash of adrenalin that kept me moving. I need to run.

I have to.

I keep still, letting the cold wrap around my almost naked limbs and settle deeper, the numbness at least overriding the pain that I’ve felt for so long.

Breathing, I need to keep breathing. Just breathe and rest and maybe I’ll move in a little bit. Yeah, I’ll move soon, I tell myself, the cold seeping into me, as my body slows down and settles into that place just before sleep where I’m awake but not quite.

It’s now that I evaluate things, think about everything I’ve done and been, and I wonder if it was worth it. If betraying everything I know about loyalty was truly worth the price I’ve paid.

Everything I have done in the last while, the last few years really, has been about pushing the boundaries and forcing a change that I now understand was too strong to force.

I should have listened to what Daddy said, each little wisdom he ever gave me, and used it to guide me instead of rushing headlong into something I haven’t lived long enough to understand.

Breathing deeply, I feel my wolf whimper, the dominant animal overlaying the cougar within me that is now crying out for survival.

The truth is, I don’t deserve to survive this. I deserve to lay here out in the snow, in the middle of the forest, and die for making choices I had no place making.

And yet, all I can think about is my pack, getting back and warning them of what I’ve learned. Everything I’ve seen. All those little pieces I’ve put together, using nothing more than my wits, rebellion, and impulsive nature.

I need to go home, go back to the people I’ve betrayed and throw myself down in supplication because I should right the wrongs I’ve done and fix everything before I give up.

Quitting is easy, Barbie, I hear Dad say in that part of me that longs for him. Don’t quit now, just soldier on through, and I promise you the accomplishment will be worth it.

But I have no accomplishment here. All I’ve managed to do is betray my own and open others up to harm in the bargain. I’ve not only exposed my pack to the monsters—but the weak and desperate as well.

Rolling over with effort, I look up at the moon, the big clear ball shining down on me where I lay, breathing out breath clouds and willing myself to get up, go, keep running until I get home to people who may hate me but will protect me.

All I want is my daddy and mama. I want one more time to feel their loving arms surround me in warmth. I want just one more hug and kiss, one more endearing lecture where Daddy bemoans my stubborn nature and mama pesters me to settle down and give her grandyoung.

I can’t have it though, I think, as my body stops shivering and tells me I’m in hypothermia territory. I can’t have that because I gave it all up the moment those shifters walked into my cabin and I made a choice.

I gave up my life, my freedom, my honor because I believed that the orders I’d been given meant more than what I had. I trusted that helping others would make me strong and honorable and that sacrifice would mean a better life for all.

To do what I was doing meant getting rid of the elite families that live within the community I grew up in. It was me striking out against shifters who believed themselves superior to mixed breeds, human matings, and anything that in any way went against our old laws.

I was helping by taking female shifters from mates they did not want but had to accept because their families dictated they did. I saved females from lives spent in loveless matings and constant unhappiness.

I saved the young whose parents weren’t fit to raise pigs. Mostly, I worked to make my Alpha stand up and see that his complacency was getting many a shifter wolf, bear, cat, whatever breed or mix thereof, killed. Or trapped in a prison of family ties.

I really was...am...an idiot. I should have seen that what I was doing was dwindling my pack down to bare bones and causing a power shift that almost, if not yet, unseated my Alpha.

I did all this not understanding that time is what it takes—not force.

So I took the order, ran headlong into danger, and by the time I came up for air and smelled the fucking cappuccino, it was too late. Now I’m basically dead or will be in a few minutes if the cold doesn’t get me.

They’re tracking me, hunting me like an animal, and when they find me I am dead. There’s no doubt about that. I know too much. I have seen too much. Heard too much for them to let me live.

You can live.

I hear the voice wash over my mind like a balm and crack a smile of pure irony.

Hannah Seers? Is that you?

Kilter now. I mated Logan.

Snorting at the irony of Hannah Seers, little princes of the elite, mating the lead enforcer of my Alpha’s army, I roll my eyes at the sky and wonder at the mysteries of the maker. Hannah Seers—wait, Kilter—mated to a male, who once looked at her and swore he’d never mate a bigot female who despised his mixed blood. Logan, a male who swore to me that he hated her and wanted nothing to do with her

I guess it’s true. Once you find your Fated, your one true mate, there isn’t anything that will stop that instinct from taking over.

Keep going, Barbie.

Can’t. Tired.

So tired. I’ve been tired for days now, on edge, hungry, desperate. It’s a miracle I’ve made it this far at all, I think, letting the connection I feel and have felt before ebb.

Yeah, Hannah has been with me before, and that time it was a total accident, too. I woke to feeling something, this strange niggling in my mind that I mistook for my anxiety. But then I can’t blame myself for the mistake because at that time I was both afraid and strangely uncertain of the circumstances.

Paranoid.

I don’t blame myself for the paranoia either because the circumstances were not ideal. I snort when the thought hits me and huff out a mirthless puff of air. Anyone would have been paranoid if they were being held hostage by a strange race of shifter, being imprisoned and forced to work for them to find answers about a genetic anomaly that quite frankly still boggles the mind.

It’s not that they treated me badly, that they starved me, beat me, or mistreated me in any way. No, that was not what I was afraid of. I was afraid...of what would happen if I ever found the answers they were searching, are searching for, and I became obsolete...to people who should be loyal.

I should have known that I was my enemy, not them, not the resistance, and most certainly not the people of my pack. And now I’m going to die because I made all the wrong choices. I trusted all the wrong people—

Barbie! Hey, hey female! Are you still—? Please do not die. Please.

I hear Hannah again, her voice in my head filled with fear, sorrow, and anger as I slip closer to sleep, the cold no longer there as warmth and comfort enfolds me.

Gone is the pain I felt screaming through my body from days of enforced captivity and hunger. Gone is the snarling animal inside my head that demanded I shift and run, survive, never stop.

All I feel is peace and warmth and this strange weightlessness that starts at my bare feet and works itself up my legs to where my black panties cover my lower half.

It travels up, over my belly, breasts, and shoulders and nestles into my head where before I was sporting a wicked headache.

Right now, I feel better than I have in ages, and lethargy, though strong, is welcome because it means I don’t have to get up and keep going. I won’t have to shake off the comforting sensation and welcome the pain again—

Pain lets you know you’re alive! Come on, Bar. Come on, female, get up.

So tired.

I know, female. I feel it, but please, please just get up and keep running. Please. Logan would be so hurt if you died out there all alone.

Not alone. I have my animals.

No! No, uh, Barbie, get up. Get up.

Hannah keeps yelling, and I smile, thinking it ironic that this female is being so rock solid and nice, where before all I saw when I looked at her was a spoiled little princess who treated people like crap and took what she wanted no matter the cost.

There was a time in my life where I despised her for having so much and not using it to help others. She had money and power and influence, and all she did was shop and treat people like they had no worth.

It’s damn hilarious that right now she’s talking to me in my head and trying to pep talk me to live when once I would have truly believed she wouldn’t care one way or the other.

I do care, Barbie. Oh God, get up, you stupid mixed breed! Are you weak? Of course, you are. Daddy was right, your blood is weak, and your mind is just as lacking.

The words have me snarling, my inner wolf hearing the scathing insult and perking up her head slowly. She’s so lethargic it makes me gasp when she tries to surge up and show her power, my body tensing when her re-emergence brings with it sensation I don’t want to feel.

Strong!

Yes, yes that’s it. Wake up, wolf. That’s a good girl. You wake yourself up and don’t let that bitch fall asleep out there or you’ll both die. Stand up, wolf.

My body screams in pain once again when my wolf surges to the fore and forces me up, agony making my legs shake like two tree trunks in a gale force wind when I feel my body roll and push up, putting me on my feet.

I’m here, completely sentient and in control, and yet not, because my body is now up and moving. Granted, the first step isn’t a step but rather a stumbling, almost-numb shuffle through the loose snow.

Hannah—

Shut up! You shut the hell up, Barbie, and don’t mess with what I just did. She’ll take the brunt of it if you stay down.

She’s not feeling this! It hurts. Oh God, it hurts.

My mind screams with the hurt. It’s cold, so cold that it feels like fire is licking through my bones and blasting through every nerve ending I possess. I long for the return of the numbness and warmth I felt just moments before as my wolf and cougar both stretch awake and take control, pushing my limbs to work, forcing my body to move despite my protests.

It takes a long time, a lot of inner battle, but I realize I’m running, really running and not stumbling all over the place when I feel wind on my face, the icy blades slapping into my skin to revive me.

That’s right, wake up. You’re awake. Alive. Don’t let go.

I can’t—

Don’t say that, Barbie. You can. You can do this. You must do this. Just think, honey, you can come home and—

And explain to everyone why I joined the resistance, lied to my entire pack, and fucked it all up so monumentally? They’re going to hate me. My parents are going to be so ashamed of me and my Alpha—

Your Alpha is a strong, benevolent male, who will listen to you and not judge you, Barbie. Nick will just be ecstatic to know that you survived.

I snort, not even seeing where I’m going or letting myself feel the cold when my bare feet touches the snow-covered ground. I keep going, fuelled by my animal’s instinct, whatever power is up there giving me this strength to carry on when I know deep down inside, I shouldn’t even be conscious anymore.

Nick is going to despise me for helping the enemy, Hannah. Nothing I say can defend what I have done.

Then don’t defend it! Don’t defend a thing. Just come home and help us, Barbie. Tell us what and who this is.

Her voice is so desperate I have the fleeting thought that little Hannah Seers must have gone and got herself a heart to put in that empty chest of hers.

Not nice! Not nice at all. I’ll have you know I am awesome and kind and—okay, so I’m starting slow and being kind on Tuesdays only, but still, you gotta start somewhere.

Yeah right!

It’s true. I didn’t once tell Ros that the purple rag she was wearing this morning was hideous, and I refrained from telling Mika that she had baby drool and sour milk in her hair—even though she reeked of it and it looks like she hasn’t slept in years!

Oh bravo!

Hey, this is monumental stuff here, Barbie, a break-through event that has taken me months in the making. I can’t change myself overnight, you know. Not that I want to, I mean...I am awesome.

Now I do laugh because that sounds more like it.

How did you get Logan to mate you?

All me and my golden—

Do not want that to be the last thing I think about before I die!

Hannah snorts and giggles, the sound making me choke on my desperation. I’ve run a long way already, but not far enough. I can’t go fast enough in skin. I would be so much closer if I was in wolf form, letting the animals’ power take the lead and using their superior speed and life force to get me so much further.

Shift.

I can’t. They’ll scent me.

You’re already done, Barbie. For fuck’s sake—shift!

The yell is loud in my head, making my already fractured mind scream out with echoes of her desperation. I don’t get to think or feel any which way but unsteady before my wolf bursts free of her restraints and shoves out, shifting so fast my mouth opens in a silent, breathless scream.

And then I’m running, fast, paws digging into snow and sending me flying through trees and foliage. The sky is cloaked from view by the trees, but my wolf feels the moon and revels in the freedom, her fur pelt blocking out the cold as effortlessly as she navigates the ground and snow, taking me deeper, faster than I could have in skin.

It doesn’t last long though. That fast burst, the energy required for the shift starts running off just as I hear another howl split the night, the sound sending fear down my spine.

Wolf. I hear a wolf.

Don’t be afraid, Barbie. He’s coming for you.

Who? God, Hannah, I can’t go anymore.

That’s okay, sweetie. Shh, let your mind go and be calm. You’re gonna be alright.

Her soothing tone acts as a balm, even as my wolf slows to a halting stumble and then stops, falling to the soft cold ground with a whine. I’m done, shifting back to skin, naked and colder than ever before.

He’s coming, Barbie, just hold on.

Chapter Two

Brig

I follow Hannah’s directions to the letter, veering east when I would instinctively go west, letting my wolf have its head with a freedom I haven’t felt in years.

Coming from a family of shifters who are called the elite because they don’t believe in mixing breed with breed or shifter with human, it’s not an easy thing to just be as wild as our animals want us to be.

For years, my father has used his power and the fear he instilled to punish us without shifts. If I’ve been allowed to shift seven times in the last year—besides those times when my job as an enforcer asked for it—that is a lot.

But now that it’s just me, now that I left my family behind and decided to do the right thing for once in my miserable life, I am just as free as my wolf, and I fucking love it.

You need to hurry.

I am hurrying, Hannah! Christ, even in shifter form I can only go so fast.

I hear my sister sigh in my mind, her special abilities to hear others’ thoughts and invade their head space giving me a direct link to her and those eerie abilities that have been growing by leaps and bounds ever since she mated her Fated male—Logan Kilter.

For years I believed that she was better off having my father refuse for her to mate him because Hannah and Logan shared a very unlikely, unpleasant relationship for two people whom nature put together.

In short, they despised each other. I think Logan despised her because he couldn’t reconcile the beauty on the outside with the person he thought she was, and for Hannah it was hurt because she wanted him to love her and she knew he wouldn’t.

My Hannah didn’t bend though, even when she was heartbroken, no, not Hannah. Instead of hurting silently, she became worse, spitting in everyone’s eye because—to my little sister—if you have to do the time, you gotta at least do the crime.

At least that’s what she always quipped when I asked her why she went out of her way to piss off Logan and his family.

Not that I think it was all her. Hell, a large part of it was my father’s insistence that Hannah mate the Alpha’s son, reject her Fated, and push his own agenda.

It’s no easy excuse, but I get why Hannah followed his orders. Being with Bear, the Alpha’s only son was easy for her because they were always friends and he treated her well—even if she was a horror.

Once his Fated came into the picture though, well, let’s just say it was always going to be Hannah who got ditched and it was always going to be Hannah who would bear the punishment for failing in odds that my father would not agree were impossible.

Hell, I even killed two elite, who will never be found, because my father ordered a kill on Mika Silverton, Bear’s mate. Not because I particularly like Mika mind you, but rather because I refuse to see another person hurt because my father has goals to become the next Alpha.

He doesn’t care that Alpha is blood, that the pack won’t accept him. All his crazed mind can see is power and domination, just like he has dominated the family for years.

Now that Hannah is free of him though, I can move on—and move on I will. Just as soon as I find Barbie Kendall and paddle that female’s ass for fucking up all my plans.

Panting, I run hard, ignoring the burn of energy as I sniff the air again and whine my frustration.

She’s not our here! I don’t scent her.

Wait. Just wait.

I snort at Hannah’s snarling order and keep going, knowing that if I came in this direction and she’s wrong about where Barbie is then we’re screwed. Well, she’s screwed to be exact.

I’ll just keep going North over the border and get lost in a place that is still wild enough to keep me hidden. Not Canada! Jesus, I’m still civilized. No, I intend to go all the way to Alaska, where solitude is plenty and humans aren’t many.

After I find that female and paddle her ass of course.

I’m just about to snarl at Hannah again when I scent her. My wolf snarls his rage, running faster, and I almost lose my damn mind myself when I smell fear, pain, and blood.

Not much blood, I tell myself, trying to keep calm. But it’s enough that I know the female is hurt. Christ, she’s in skin too, I think, picking up the scent even stronger before I burst into trees and then through again, into a small clearing that is heavy with fresh snowfall.

Right there, in the middle, is a blonde bundle of female, who is completely naked and half frozen from the cold. She’s so tiny as she lays there curled into herself, her ass on full display and blue as a Smurf.

I’d snort and find this funny, maybe even gloat some because this is just fucking rich, Barbie Kendall, the perfect little mixed-breed princess is half dead and needing my help, something that I find particularly amusing since the female has snubbed me more times than I can count, pulling her little nose up at my elite ass with disdain.

Would serve her right if I just left the little shit here to freeze to death, I think.

Brigger! Don’t you dare.

I hear Hannah’s gasp of outrage, smattered with heavy amusement she can’t hide, and I grin, walking forward on my paws with my tongue lolling out.

Calm down, I didn’t run all this way just to leave her spiteful ass here. I was just amusing myself with sweet what-ifs.

The assurance earns me a snort of derision that I ignore, as I get closer to Barbie—Jesus Christ, what a stupid fucking name—and nudge her with my muzzle.

She doesn’t move but flops over at my coaxing and just lays there unconscious, her usually golden skin white enough to pass for the snow beneath her. Nudging her again, I snarl and get more forceful, wanting her to wake the hell up and get going before whatever is running at us reaches us.

They—yes, I hear a group—are still quite a ways out, but with the conditions and Barbie’s ass all but popsicled, it’s not going to be long before they reach us.

Growling, I lick at her face, my wolf whining pitifully when she doesn’t flinch a muscle.

Do something, Brigger!

Like what? Jesus Hannah, I’m not a fucking miracle worker. She’s half frozen.

Do something. Oh God, please, Brig, don’t let her just die there.

What do you want me to do?! I have at least three huge males coming at us, no place to go, and an unconscious little brat to deal with. I’m not fucking superman, you know. I can’t just deal with one thing and then move on to others. I ran over twenty miles just to get here.

Twenty wasted miles if you’re not male enough to save one measly, little brat.

I snort at Hannah’s retort and roll my eyes when my wolf growls at me, refusing to understand my almost-conscious plans to leave the bitch and split for safety.

I’m no hero, and I don’t want to be. I only came out here because I owed Hannah a favor, and now that I found Barbie, I am debt free.

"You know I didn’t mean that! You know—

You said find her. I found her.

Dammit Brigger, you fucking bastard. Don’t you dare leave her out there to freeze to death or for those