Free The Mating Intent-mobi by Bonnie Vanak

You’re more like us, like me. You have two sides to your nature as well. How can you long for acceptance from a people who will always judge you as unworthy, just like they judged me?
    “You don’t like us.”
    “I like you. But not your people,” he told her. “Elves can’t be trusted. Some do very bad things.”
    “Like leave their lovers and return to their people? You’d like me in your bed, but you don’t trust me because I’m Elven. Say it, Gabriel.”
    He couldn’t say anything more because he was dangerously close to losing it. Infuriated, he turned on his heel, wanting to smash his fists against the trees. He would not argue with her anymore. Not lose his temper before these shifters who already had suffered too much trauma.
    Instead, he forced himself to calm as he went from Wylding to Wylding, talking with them and trying to soothe their fears. This was his territory and he’d fight to the death to protect it, and anyone who lived within his borders.
    Keeping his distance as he helped a deer shifter cook a vegetable stew outside (now there was an irony he’d never have predicted), Gabriel kept an eye on Sienna. His sharp hearing enabled him to overhear every word she said as she knelt down by Neida, and began talking with her about Oregon and the beauty of the rugged coast.
    Gabriel’s chest tightened. She was good here, good with the shifters and the land. He must make her see reason and stay with him. But would she stay? Because experience taught him Elves never stuck around.
    He couldn’t risk his heart. Not again. When she’d left him last time, he’d mourned her absence for days. It had felt like a razor sliding over his heart.
    The connection between them had been so strong. He’d felt as if his mate had finally walked into his life.
    Only to walk out.
    When the shifters began eating and the sun sank into the sky, Gabriel went to Sienna. “Time to return, pixie.”
    They left the campsite to a chorus of good-byes. Voices that had weakly greeted them sounded much stronger since Sienna’s visit.
    His anger faded as he watched her duck her head, wiping her eyes. She’d come here for her own purpose and never anticipated being sucked into his troubles. Guilt pinched him.
    Then he shoved it aside. Guilt was a useless emotion. Did their guilty feelings ever make his life more bearable?
    Hell no.
    But, wanting to preserve her dignity, Gabriel pretended not to see the tears on her cheeks, sparkling in the dying sunlight.
    Elven tears had power, he remembered. She’d cried as he took her virginity, and her tears had lit up the entire room with blue-white light.
    “I need to use the spring as soon as possible. And return home.” She pushed a hand through her long blonde hair. “But you have a huge problem here.”
    Sensing her indecision, he nodded. “I need your help to stop this.”
    “I have to return to King Cael soon. I don’t have much time. So what can we do?”
    Glad she seemed committed to stay for the moment, he put a hand on the small of her back as he guided her over a rugged hill on the pathway.
    “We need to visit the river where you saw Rex. If this has spread, then we need to examine the river and see if it’s feeding the Glades or if it’s migrating.”
    Sienna frowned and stopped, her hand flattened against the trunk of a slash pine tree. She tilted her head, all sorrow gone and replaced by intent scrutiny. She appeared to be listening to something he couldn’t hear.
    He waited patiently. Having seen her use of power previously when she’d visited him last, he trusted her abilities. Light or dark, she was a powerful Elf who could tune into nature and discern problems by communicating with plant life.
    If only she stopped trying to fit into a lifestyle that refused to admit her. Sienna was too good for those superficial, pompous fools.
    He certainly hadn’t been good enough. Gabriel swallowed past the bitterness.
    Sighing, she removed her hand. “I tried gathering