Moon Shifter 02 - Primal Possession

with the Armstrong-Cordona pack, but I arrived early to see you…to spend time with you.”
    Her spine stiffened. “I can’t imagine why.”
    “Oh, can’t you?” More than sarcasm, there was a deadlier edge to his voice. Not directed at her exactly, but she knew his moods well enough.
    “I’ve moved on, so I don’t know that we have anything else to say to each other.” When he didn’t respond, she sighed and pushed her mug away. The hot liquid sat heavy in her stomach. “What do you want, Jayce?”
    “To have breakfast with you.” He turned the stove off and moved the pan off the burner.
    She relaxed a little at his words. Breakfast she could deal with. Anything else, not so much.
    “And to figure out why the hell you left. I thought we were…” He trailed off in an uncharacteristic manner. Jayce never had a problem saying what was on his mind.
    Her stomach tightened. Struggling to remain calm, she tried to shrug casually. Instead her shoulders jerked unsteadily. “You know why I left.”
    His jaw clenched. “No, I don’t. You told me we had no future, then disappeared. Just like that.”
    His words put a match to her temper. “And you told me humans didn’t undergo the change well.” When she’d asked him about how well humans transformed to shifters, he’d told her it was a rare occurrence and most humans didn’t survive the transition. Only one percent.
    He frowned. “Yes, I did. And?”
    “You failed to mention that when shifters bond with their lovers, turning them into bondmates, the chance of survival increases
substantially
.” To a hundred percent. If he’d loved her enough and wanted to mate and bond with her, then she’d have turned just fine. It would have been a hot, very pleasurable experience. If she’d let him sink his canines into her neck while they made love under a full moon, it would have been an instantaneous transformation for her. But she’d had to learn that from someone else. Jayce had lied to her and fed her some bullshit line about how she might not undergo the transition.
    He still held the spatula in his hand. The only evident giveaway that he’d understood her words was the whitening of his knuckles as he clenched the utensil. But she could also see his inner wolf clawing at him from the insides. Thanks to her seer abilities, she could see a person’s true nature. She’d known exactly what he was the moment they’d met. Unlike a lot of shifters, his wolf was always at the surface, making him much closer to his beast side than his human one. If she hadn’t grown up with this ability, it might have freaked her out a little more than it did now. She didn’t understand why his animal seemed to be agitated that she knew the truth.
    “You know about that?” A quiet question.
    Hot tears pricked her eyes, but she angrily blinked them away. He wasn’t even denying it. “I’m not stupid. You had to know I’d find out eventually.” When she’d found out the truth, she’d realized he didn’t love her and never would. He wanted her as a bedmate, but that was it. She wasn’t good enough to bond with, wasn’t good enough to turn into a shifter. She was only good for sex. Unless he bonded with her, Kat would grow old while he wouldn’t, and eventually he’d grow tired of her.
    There had been only one option. She’d had to cut her losses before it was impossible to walk away from him. Not that walking away had been easy. It had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Still he didn’t answer, so she continued. “You’re not even denying you don’t want me as your bondmate. Is it because I’m human?” She hated that her voice cracked, but too many emotions were pushing at the surface, trying to get free. Her entire life she’d always felt like a bit of a freak because of her abilities. Having a criminal for a father hadn’t helped her to fit in anywhere. She’d been nothing but an outsider until she’d met Jayce. She’d thought he’d wanted thesame things she had. That he’d cared for her as much as she’d cared for him.
    Instead of responding he just stared at her. She couldn’t read anything in his eyes. They were completely devoid of emotion. But his wolf was going crazy inside him. It looked like it wanted out and she wasn’t sure why.
    Last night’s liquor and the coffee from this morning sloshed around wickedly in her stomach.
    Finally he tore his gaze away and set the spatula down. He wouldn’t look at her and that was