A Mate's Touch (Ozark Mountain Shifters Book 5)

It was like holding your heart in your own hands and squeezing until blood dripped from your fingertips. It was the only description that fit.

Seleka watched from the fringes of the fight circle, chewing her nails to nubs as the battle raged on. The place was surrounded by her packmates and others who would vie for the alphaship of her pack. Some roared for their leader—her own sister—to win. Others cheered for the challenger, Raden. The male was tall and confident and ferocious. And Seleka had come to know him as her intended mate, though neither of them had acted on the urge to claim.

Her heart, her mate. Her sister, her blood.

A fist squeezing so tight…

They faced off in a brutal battle that could only end with one of them dead and the other the alpha of the largest wolf shifter pack in the country.

How they’d come to be here was simple. Or complicated. depending on how you looked at it. Avan, a fearsome alpha female, had recently won the leadership of the legendary Ozarka pack and challengers came from all over to try and overthrow her. Raden was one of them, and truly, the only one who really stood a chance at besting Avan.

But one look… one breath… one shiver of the air between them … and Seleka had known the brutal male who’d come to kill her sister was her mate.

A whimper escaped while she watched from the edge of the boundary as her heart and her blood battled for their place. Either one losing would ruin her. There was no winning here. There was no happily ever after in her future.

Today, she would lose her mate or she would lose her family.

A scream ripped from her throat as blood sprayed across the dust covered ground. Animalistic snarls rumbled the air as a smaller white wolf burst out of her sister’s smooth skin, followed by a much larger gray and black wolf.

They were down to animals now. It wouldn’t be long.

Tears streamed down her face without waiting for her to blink. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening.

If Raden won, she would never have a life with him. How could she, knowing he’d murdered Avan.

If Avan won, life in Ozarka would be over for her. How could she stay, knowing she had no mate to give her cubs. To make her useful to the pack.

 Your usefulness doesn’t depend on what a male can offer you, what a male can add to you. You are useful to the pack just as you are. Don’t let the old ways rule your mind just when a new day is dawning.

The voice of a familiar Elder roared through Seleka’s mind with all the ferocity of a beast and she tried to shake it off. Illia stood on the other side of the circle next to Avan’s brawny mate. Her graying cropped hair should have made her look innocent as a pixie. But her fierce expression and all-knowing gaze made her seem larger than life. Seleka stopped resisting Illia’s voice in her head and started begging instead.

Please. Please help me. What can I do to stop this?

Nothing. Have faith. That is all.

Faith. Faith? In what exactly? How does one have faith when, one way or another, their world was ending.

In the ring, her sister’s white wolf was taken to the dirty ground, and when the dust settled…

No.

NO.

Raden’s wolf had his jaws clamped around her sister’s throat, ready to deal the killing blow. One snap of his powerful jaws and Avan would be gone.

Seleka screamed.

And came awake to the sound of crickets chirping nearby. She sat up, looking around her makeshift shelter, and gasped to catch her breath.

A dream. One she’d had so many times before.

A dream… but also a memory.

She let her eyes focus on details that would ground her to reality. The moon in the night sky above her. The sleeping bag that kept her warm. Her backpack that contained what few belongings she had left. Gradually, she began to calm.

This was her new truth. She was on a mission to find her mate. And she was getting very close.

Raden was in these mountains. Instinct told her to go north from her pack’s land, and it paid off. She’d finally picked up the barest trace of his spicy scent just before dark. She’d meant to get a few hours of sleep before continuing her search, but now she just wanted to find him.

Find home, her wolf purred.

Yes. Home.

Raden was where she belonged. Not the Ozark camp. It was why she left her sister and Mama crying on the steps of the alpha’s lodge. They begged her not to go, and she’d been proud of herself for sticking to her guns. But she was done with this vagabond existence. Done with feeling lonely and out of place.

It was time to be happy.

And in order to do that, she had to keep moving. Keep moving until she found her other half.

Dawn was painting the sky pale by the time she finished packing her things, and as the stars turned into daylight, she headed for the mountain that could be her redemption.