Free Boarlander Beast Boar (Boarlander Bears Book 4) by T. S. Joyce Page A

leaking from her body, she strode toward the porch. And when she heard him slam his door and follow behind, she jogged to escape him.
    She reached for the door handle, but Mason was there in a blur, hand on the barrier. “You’re angry.”
    “Damn straight, I’m angry,” she said, shoving off him to get some breathing room. “You think you’re the only one with real estate in ‘actual love’? You think you’re the only one who lost it? I loved Robbie. Loved him. Lucky you, your mate loved you back, but mine didn’t feel the same about me. So no, I can’t call him my mate because I wasn’t that to him. I wasn’t enough! And don’t you fucking talk to me about ghosts, Mason. I can see my ghost. I share a child with him, have to talk to him, see him, watch him move on with some woman younger and prettier than me. I have to feel the slap of his rejection constantly, and I will have to bear it my whole life. He couldn’t stand to touch me! Couldn’t stand to fuck me unless it was from behind and he wasn’t looking at my face, and I knew what he was doing. He was buried in me, thinking about the women he kept on the road. He spent more on them every holiday than on me. I could see our bank accounts, knew what was happening, but my animal was in it. I was trapped. I was mated. He was not. I’m sorry you lost your mate. I really am. My heart bleeds for what you’ve been through. But I think that somewhere along the way, you became so buried in your own pain that you can’t see the good things that are sitting right in front of you.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like me!” Tears streamed from her eyes, and angrily, she wiped them with the back of her hand. “You lost your mate, and I’m sorry for it. Not because I pity you, but because I care about you. I don’t want you to hurt because I know what the ache of loss can do to a person. What it can do to your animal. You lost a mate, and I know it’s not the same to you, but I lost one, too. And now I’ll lose another.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Miserably, she ducked her gaze. In a shaking voice, she whispered, “You know what I mean.”
    Mason approached slow, and she countered back until her hips hit the porch railing. “Tell me.”
    Her face crumbling, she swallowed a sob and said, “I picked you the first time I saw you. I picked another man who can’t pick me back.”
    And as he took another step toward her, she gave into the pulsing power of her animal. She would be damned if another man ever trapped her.
    ****
    Mason held his hands out soothingly, palms up, because Beck smelled different. He was hurting her, just like he knew he would. She smelled of anger and sadness and something more. Something inhuman. Beck hunched inward and imploded in an instant. Her clothes dropped to the floorboards and a massive white owl blasted toward him. She used his shoulder to leap from, her long, curved talons slicing through his flesh before she beat her powerful wings and caught air. She lifted easily, gracefully, glided to the tree line. He’d never seen anything more beautiful. She was larger than any wild snowy owl by five times, at least, and her wingspan was massive. Flowing downy feathers covered her outstretched legs, and her talons looked like daggers. And just before she disappeared into the night, she let off a surprisingly guttural and fierce call.
    Holy. Shit.
    Shifters like Beck were thought to be extinct. Most of the animal shifters were, and though some flight shifters still existed, like falcons and ravens, snowy owls hadn’t been seen or heard from in decades.
    I picked you the first time I saw you.
    Mason ran his hands over his baseball cap, took it off, and chucked it at the trailer. He hadn’t been paying attention. He’d been in the muck, trying to tread water and keep his shit together. He’d been concerned with taking it slow because, until dinner tonight, he’d thought Beck was human. They were different. Humans ran on slower timelines,