Rejected And Claimed By Her Trio Alpha Mates

chapter 21

I jerk up in bed, shock flooding me and turning my skin to ice.

The man and I stare at one another in silence for several heartbeats, neither of us moving. He’s unblinking, a ghostly, beautiful statue in the sliver of light falling through the c***k in the curtains. Half his face is forged from the shadows in the corner, and the other is damn near alight from the streetlamp outside.

For a moment, I sit frozen, my hands clawed into the blankets against my chest. On the heels of my dream, I’m not entirely certain he’s real. Maybe he’s just a vision—a night terror, a holdover from the dream, the way old photograph negatives could overlap in the developing process.

My head feels foggy enough to lend truth to the idea. Despite my jolt of terror, maybe I just haven’t fully awakened. There’s no way someone could have gotten into my room without me knowing it.

But… the ache in my head from the fight with Kian is more pronounced now. The ibuprofen I took earlier has worn off, so the throbbing has crept back in. I have vivid dreams, but they don’t usually include pain.

Then the mate bond hits me, and I know it’s not a dream.

The bond rushes through me like the wind on my bike. My wolf howls to life, a presence inside me that whines for this pale-haired stranger, aches to be close to him. The bond is electric in my body, just as strong and certain as it was the night I bonded to Kian. It’s an almost corporeal connection, a line stretching between us, connecting us as one.

He’s one of them, I think, floored by the realization. This man is one of my three mates.

It’s hard to swallow. Even harder to believe. I was raised with the dead certainty that every wolf had one fated mate, if you were lucky to meet them and be bonded. But I watched Ridge learn to share Sable with her other three mates—all of them alphas of the packs that came together with ours. Not to mention, Gwen warned me that I had three mates after I’d already bonded with Kian.

And here he is. One of them, at least.

So I have no reason to doubt the feeling.

My chest tightens, and my stomach churns. His face is entirely unfamiliar—a stranger—and yet everything about him screams mine. There’s a familiarity that runs deeper than the surface. The way I sensed Kian like a storm on the horizon when he walked into that bar three years ago. My body knew before I did.

The bond is an all-out attack on my senses trying to drag me to this nameless stranger, but I remain on the bed, looking at him while he’s looking back.

He doesn’t move, though I know he feels it. There’s no way he can’t. It’s a desperate pounding in my blood that has to be happening to him, as well.

The air conditioner kicks on with a low hum, startling me from the reverie. The real world rushes back in, dampening the screaming bond enough that I can gather my wits about me. I shove away the rising desire, the aching need, and remind myself that this man is dangerous.

I came here to kill him. Even if I didn’t know him at the time.

Get off your ass, Amora! my mind screams. I know I need to leap into action. This is my chance—a second chance tonight to carry out my mission.

Still, I remain frozen in place.

God, he’s gorgeous. Where Kian’s darkly sensuous, this man is pale and illuminated. Even standing as still as stone, he vibrates with energy.

Get up!

I finally convince my hands to unclench, and the blanket falls away from my chest. My knife is on the nightstand, and I’m calculating whether or not I can reach it before he reaches me, when my mate moves.

His weight shifts just enough to draw my attention, and there’s a blur of something that flashes in the angle of the streetlight. Then something long and heavy slices through the air toward my head.

Except… it misses me.

I jerk away, turning to stare at the knife embedded in the headboard.

Only inches from my head.

I raise an eyebrow and glare at him, fury lancing through me. “You missed.”

He inclines his head, and his shoulder-length platinum hair brushes over the dark fabric of his shirt like spiderwebs, but he doesn’t respond.

Suddenly, an odd, quiet hissing fills the room. It’s close to my ear—really close. I glance back at the embedded knife and notice for the first time that there’s a strange shadow on the headboard. The room is dim, and the sliver of light passing through the curtains is enough to cast a few shadows on the floor and across the mattress, but this one…

This isn’t normal.

It’s darker than most shadows, and it doesn’t seem to have a source.

As I stare at the black shape, it squirms. At first, I think I’ve imagined it—a trick of the light, a trick of my own movement, a trick of gravity. Because there’s no way in hell a shadow can move on its own.

Until it moves again.

It squirms against the knife’s blade, parts of it rising from the headboard like a corporeal black cloud.

My breath hitches in my throat.

Is that motherfucker alive?

I’m no stranger to magic. Hell, I’m no stranger to some real crazy kinds of magic, not after the battle with the witches back in Montana—the one that brought Gwen into my life and set me on this path. But this is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Peter Pan’s disembodied shadow, only darker and more menacing.

Then it attacks.