Fated Mates

Orphan Entangled by Keira Blackwood and Liza Street

Rhet walked ahead of me, silent on bare feet. The thick trees and vines surrounding us created a dark hollow, perfect for finding the sweet gin berries favored by the pack. My footsteps were louder than Rhet's--partly due to my human nature, and partly due to the fact that I couldn't tear my eyes off of him and watch the ground. My feet tangled in grasses and crunched twigs and damp leaves, and Rhet turned around, his bright brown eyes catching a faint beam of sunlight coming through the canopy.

"Shh, Nadia," he whispered.

"What," I said with a scowl, "it's not like the gin berries are going to run from us."

"Practice," he said, sounding almost like his father--my adoptive father, all stern and grim. "You should always practice moving silently through the jungle."

He turned and walked ahead, and I made an effort to look not only around us, but at the ground. He was right--I needed to be more aware of my own surroundings. But it didn't take long before I looked at Rhet again, at the way his brown shirt clung to his shoulders and tapered down at the waist. He was twenty-three this year, three years older than me, and his muscles seemed to have exploded in the past few months alone.

I wasn't supposed to notice, but I did.

I wasn't supposed to want him, but I did.

It was a quiet, secret want. The kind that I could usually ignore during the day. The kind that came up in the darkness at night, filling my mind with forbidden images of the two of us together, his muscles bunching as he held me tightly in his arms and did...what? What would he do? I knew there was something--I'd seen wild animals doing things in the jungle and I knew men and women lay together in similar fashion. But what I wanted to do looked nothing like what the beasts did.

Rhet could never know--I was like a little sister to him. And I couldn't even tell my best friend, Tahira, because she was his sister.

So the images plagued my mind, delighting me, shaming me.

"Nadia, you're still too loud" he said, his voice a growl that did something to my insides.

I shoved the feelings away and looked up.

His gaze--did it linger on my lips? He blinked quickly and said, "I found some berries."

I rushed to his side, forgetting to be quiet.

"Look where you're going," he said, sounding irritated. "What if one of our traps was right there?"

"We're not that close to the perimeter," I said. The traps along the edges of the pack's territory were deep and wide, and well-hidden, intended to thwart intruders.

"It's not that far, actually," he said.

That was Rhet, always needing the last word. Not as bad as his brothers in that regard, but still exasperating.

I held up my basket and reached for the vines. A small beni snake scurried away from my hand, shy creature. It reminded me to look for other snakes or insects that might not be so shy, creatures that might defend their territory. The way looked clear. Rhet, next to me, already had a handful of gin berries, and he popped one in his mouth before making a face.

"Shit! They're too tart," he said.

"We'll add some of the sweet nuts you like," I said absently, my mind already working on what kind of meal I could fix for him. I could bake the gin berries over ground sweet nuts--he'd like that.

Smiling to myself, I began filling the basket. Rhet tossed in the occasional berry, but just as many went straight into his mouth. He made a face each time.

I kicked him with my bare foot. He shot me a warning glance, so I kicked him again. He reached down, quicker than my eyes could track, and had my ankle in his grasp. He lifted high, higher, and I shrieked.

"You're going to make me fall," I said.

"Aw, princess," he said, "I wouldn't do that."

"You so would," I said, "and stop calling me princess."

He just gave me an impish grin and tossed another berry into his mouth. "Can't. You're the favored one of us."

I shook my head. I did just as many chores as the wolf shifters in the pack, and I was respectful to the alpha just like they were. My place here had been decided when I was so young, I didn't even remember coming here. The alpha and his mate had taken in a tiny human girl with mud on her skin and torn clothes, tangled and wild black hair, and frightened eyes. The alpha liked to recount the story of my arrival over the campfire some nights, and I always warmed under the affectionate, fatherly look in his eyes.

Before I knew it, my basket was full. Rhet reached over to take one of the berries from me, but I slapped his hand away.

"I could take that entire basket if I wanted to," he said.

"I'd like to see you try."

His grin got even bigger, and his voice went deep and dark. The wolf in the jungle. "Maybe you should run, princess."

My heart tripped in my chest and began pounding harder. A chase. He had no idea that whenever he suggested one, it did strange things to my insides. These were the things I thought of late at night, alone in my hut. I imagined the chase, and I imagined him catching me, and somehow, in my imaginings, we were always naked.

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