Wanton

Two years after her lover died, Lynx Jenise finally feels ready to indulge the consuming urge to mate at the shifter gathering known as the Wild. Though her very human heart was broken, her animal instincts can no longer be suppressed.

But even as she finds the rough pleasure she craves with other Lynxes, another instinct haunts Jenise—the feeling that another mate is near….

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She was being hunted.

A small smile curved Jenise’s lips, and her heart began to pound with heady anticipation. The cold mountain air of the Sierra Nevadas kissed her naked flesh, curling between her bare legs to stroke the heated folds of her sex. She shivered, her nipples tightening to an almost painful degree. The slightest rustle of a cat’s paw on dew-covered grass whispered in her ear.

He was catching up with her. Her hunter. The Lynx within her nearly purred as the excitement built higher. She couldn’t wait for him to fuck her, but he’d have to catch her first. Her smile widened. The first week of spring every year was the Wild time for her kind. Every female went into heat simultaneously, and every Lynx on the continent gathered here. To connect with their animalistic nature, to rut until the heat burned itself out.

It was the last day of Wild. She could feel the heat easing its grip on her body. Tears pressed against her lids at the prospect of this time-away-from-time ending. She clenched her jaw, shoving the thought away. No. She would enjoy the now, squeeze every ounce of sensation out of what time remained to her. Her grin sharpened, showing her truest nature. Feral woman.

Shivering again in the cool breeze licking at her flesh, she shifted into her Lynx form. Her body flowed into the new shape, bones and sinew remolding into those of a feline. Spotted fur soon covered her skin, protecting her from the chill wind.

She wound through the tall trees, padding lightly on her paws as the underbrush thinned and gave way to the rocky shore beside a flowing river. The last rays of the fading sun sparkled on the water as it gurgled around and tripped over larger rocks. The breeze ruffled her thick fur, bringing with it the scent of her pursuer.

Soon. Soon, she would have him as she had had so many others this week. A pang struck her, and her heart clenched in her chest. Guilt twisted inside her, choking off her breath.

Two years had passed since Shane died. Her mate. The first year, she hadn’t been able to make herself attend Wild. The loss was too raw, too new. Alone in her house, she’d found the cravings of her body eating her alive, until she’d screamed from the relentless want she couldn’t stop. She was in heat; she needed to fuck. Those animal instincts didn’t care that her very human heart had shattered, that half of her soul had been ripped away, leaving her empty and barren. Broken.

Lost.

She couldn’t face her Wild time alone the second year. She just…couldn’t. The need had clawed at her too deeply, slicing through her control. She swallowed and twitched her ears now, trying to ignore the guilt. Shane was possessive, as all males of their kind were. He would hate knowing that she craved the touch of another man, any other man who might want to stroke his fingers down her naked skin, who might be willing to thrust his long cock into her overheating body. Anything to assuage the need, to ease the carnal torment for even a single moment.

He would never have understood.

A bittersweet ache filled her chest at the thought of him. Theirs had been a mating of opposites. Shane was conservative, quiet, upright. His feral nature had hidden deep beneath the surface, rarely breaking free of the man’s iron control. And she…she had always been untamed, wanton. Most at home here in the Wild with other Lynx. Shane’s discomfort with the feline side of himself meant he had eventually stopped coming to Wild. It was a time for rutting, and the only man she’d craved was him. So she’d stayed away as well. Stayed with him. Her mate.

Perhaps she had compromised too much, but she had loved him deeply and been loved in return. What more could she have asked for than that? To her, it had seemed simple. And she had been so content, so whole. It was only now, years later, that she realized how much of herself she had lost. She had become one with another being when she had mated, turning away from herself and embracing a coexistence that she thought would last her entire life.

A decade seemed so fleeting a time to be happy, a mere heartbeat in a lifetime that could only promise loneliness.

Now she needed to find herself once more, learn to trust herself and her instincts again. The last two years had taught her that she was stronger than she’d ever guessed. She had survived. And now she had to learn live again. It was terrifying. Painful.

Free.

It confused her, the conflicting emotions that ricocheted through her. The agony. The unfettered ecstasy. And the sheer animalistic need that burned away everything else. During Wild, her past didn’t matter, and her future was held at bay. This moment, this heartbeat, was all-important. It consumed her the way the heat that coiled within her did.